


A Lady's Fate

by deviatehardorgohome



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), Orlando - Virginia Woolf
Genre: 2-day bender in Cersei’s case, Anal sex!, Arya/Gendry (mentioned), Every kind of sex except the one Sandor was hoping for!, F/M, Gender Bender, M/M, Masturbation, Medieval folk are very un-PC, Oral sex!, Public Nudity, Ramsay fuckin' Snow, Sexual Confusion, Sexual Tension, all the best wishes backfire like an old car, almost chicks with dicks but not quite, farewell puberty I barely knew thee, queer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 23:29:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 58,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6446551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deviatehardorgohome/pseuds/deviatehardorgohome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa wishes that the cruel life of a lady without allies was not her fate. Then she gets her wish!</p><p>Loosely, goosely based on Virginia Woolf's 'Orlando'. The tags shriek warnings for the faint-hearted!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Gods Hear My Prayers!

Sansa was washed with the familiar sense of relief as she returned to her rooms for the final time that night. She hadn’t been summoned or talked to by anyone, so another day had passed without pain. At least from others. She only numbly felt her handmaiden unlace her gown and pull out the pins of her hair.

It was probably the approach of Stannis’s army that allowed her this reprieve. If there had been no dire threat to his life, Joffrey would most likely have been more fixated on Sansa’s recent moonblood. The gods knew it was hard for her to keep her mind off it.

It made her feel terribly guilty to be grateful for the preparations for battle. She knew many men would lose their lives in it, but every moment Joffrey was distracted by something else was a moment she breathed easy.

Every day was her battlefield, and everyone she met her foes. It was not even any longer simply insults and Ser Payne and visions of the black cells that she must fight off, but also the scornful faces of women, and the clinging stares of men.

Joffrey’s leering eyes as he stroked the hilt of his sword. The kingsguard letting their gaze dip down her bodice as her dresses forced it upwards. Littlefinger looking at her as though she were naked. Even knights and servants and lesser lords let their eyes linger, now she was a traitor’s daughter.

 _A lady’s lot in life can be cruel_ , she decided. Before this, it had only ever seemed glorious, beautiful and perfect. She was fortunate to be born a lady. Now, she knew it was her family that made her life bright, not her name or her title.

 _Please protect all the smallfolk of this city from the wrath of the king and the battle_ , she prayed without hope. _Please don’t let this suffering be my fate_.

As she slipped into her bed she hoped for another night of dreams about her family, her father, Lady. In sleep she could have what the waking world would not give her. The night was warm, and Sansa kicked off all but the thinnest sheet as she sunk into her slumber.

 

* * *

 

Sansa walked into a cold sept. Though she did not feel it, she knew it was freezing from the frost on the windows, the mist in the air of her breath. It was not the sept at Winterfell… though she was dressed in sumptuous furs as though she were in the North. It was no sept she had ever seen, in truth. The roof was higher than twenty men and arched like the Great Sept of the capital, but it was built all of wood, and somewhat rough-hewn at that. The walls were still filled with rainbow glassed windows, so that the whole hall was filled with colored lights, and Sansa felt only a dream could look like this.

She approached the altar, where only three statues stood instead of seven. She smiled at the familiar figures of the Maiden, Mother and Crone, sitting down between them without lighting a candle, and began to speak her prayer. Except it wasn’t like a prayer at all, but a conversation, and the statues, the gods, were speaking with her as well! They were laughing, and crying, and gossiping as she had in Winterfell with Jeyne.

And then the gods changed, and became the Warrior, Father and Smith, chatting and sighing with her still as though nothing were different. Now she knew it was a dream, but it was so pleasant, and she felt so at ease, she had no desire whatsoever for it to end.

So of course, that’s exactly what it did.

 

* * *

 

Sansa awoke disappointed. Even her dreams failed as shelters from the pains of life. She understood now, more than ever, how much of her past had been waking dreams. She stretched to loosen up her morning stiffness, and felt strangely different. Both lighter and heavier.

She opened her eyes properly and looked about. Everything seemed the same. It must be the lingering wyrd of the visions in her sleep. Yet she couldn’t shake the notion. She put her hands to her face, and traced down the smoothness of her cheeks to her neck, down across her breastbone and… it was, she was sure she had more flesh there than she felt now. More than almost _nothing_.

She sat up. Her breasts did not move with her, as they normally did from lying to standing. She was like a girl again, flat and shapeless. Her shoulders drooped in disappointment. Or maybe she had always been flat, and only dreamed that she’d become shapely. Only dreamed that her dresses pinched and men stared…

It didn’t seem right. And neither did another thing that was nagging at her like a strange weight. Sansa lifted back her sheets and wiggled her nightshift up over her hips.

And then she saw… **_it_**.

Sansa lowered the sheets. Then she raised them again.

It was still there. She must still be asleep.

Her breathing calmed down, slowed, possibly stilled. Every time she blinked she thought, she was sure, this was going to be the time she woke up.

But it was still there.

If this was a dream it was a very silly one, because she spent a good half hour of her morning in bed, tussled up in her sheets, just staring, and trying to convince herself she wasn’t mad.

Eventually she was interrupted in this increasingly challenging task by the arrival of a handmaid, who opened the door with a polite – though unmistakeably false – “Good morning, my lady.”

“My lady!” Sansa repeated with glee. That was right. She _was_ a lady, and always had been.

“My lady?” The maid echoed back, as though now she was the one who needed to be convinced. “What… what happened to you, my….,” she trailed off, staring at Sansa. Sansa stared back at her. Then, with horrifying curiosity, Sansa peeked under the sheets again.

“Could you please, oh, I’m so sorry I’ve quite forgotten your name, but, do you think you could come here and tell me… ah… tell me what this is?” She asked, sure that any moment now this nonsense would be over.

The handmaid approached the bed wordlessly and looked over Sansa’s face, and shoulders, and chest, her own face growing more confused by the second. Then Sansa lifted the sheets up again, and the maid let out a choking gargle like the last spurt of wine from a skin.

Sansa opened her mouth to try and reason this out sensibly.

The handmaid bolted for the door, left it flung open and ran shrieking down the hall.

“My laaaaady!”


	2. Cersei says: When life gives you lemons, make alcoholic lemonade.

“What in all the names of every god is this?” Cersei Lannister hissed, powering her way through her second cup of wine that morning. At least, since Sansa had been admitted to her presence.

“I… I don’t know, you grace,” Sansa whispered. She had not much voice left to her after all the crying she had done in the last hour.

“I wasn’t asking you, stupid girl!” The queen snapped.

“Or not a girl,” Varys said smoothly from his perch on a seat too small for him.

“Yes I would say that, yes it seems the lady, ah, Sansa is not a girl,” the grandmaester proclaimed sagely.

“We’ve all seen up her bloody skirts, we know she’s not a girl!” Cersei shrieked, and splashed her wine into Pycelle’s face. She instantly turned round for her cup to be re-filled, then remembered she’d dismissed all her attendants.

“Come over here and fill my cup, _boy_ ,” she sneered, and Sansa felt like she had some new tears ready to shed.

On shaky legs she walked over and picked up the golden flask with both hands, barely settling it against the lip of the cup with all the trembling she was doing.

Cersei hardly waited for her to put down the flask again before grasping her arm in a cruel pinch.

“Were you never a girl? Is this some trick by the Starks? Gods, the other daughter was barely a girl either. Maybe lord Stark only ever had sons?” She shook Sansa back and forth, but reminding her of her family was a much harsher pain.

“I was, I am a girl!” She sobbed. “I was always a girl! I, I, I was only different this morning!” She had said it all before, but there was nothing else to say, and she was scared of saying nothing.

“She practically had bloody teats!” The Imp decided to interject. The other inhabitants of the room, witness to Sansa’s utter humiliation, were the stunted Hand, a completely silent king Joffrey, and his two kingsguard. Whom he’d insisted stay for whatever horrible news of his beloved Sansa there was to share.

“Varys has bloody teats!” Cersei yelled back, and went to fling her wine in Tyrion’s face too, but her cup was empty this time. Sansa picked up the flask.

“Yes but she doesn’t have them any _longer_ ,” Varys said encouragingly. “And there is no mistaking her face is narrower, her shoulders broader and the, hmm, lack of hips. Her dress, which is really too tight for the poor thing, is tight in entirely different places.” He was the only member of this secret cabal who had a smile, and indeed appeared to be almost happy.

Sansa wanted to die.

“You, and you,” Cersei pointed at Pycelle and Varys like her finger was a dagger. “You either explain this, or you get out of this city as fast as you can. Because I’ll need a new grandmaester and master of whispers and they’ll be filling dead men’s shoes.”

Pycelle went to make a protest at this, but Varys was faster.

“I do not recognise any spell or curse such as this but, given time and study, I believe I can discover the cause, yes,” he smiled.

“Really?” Sansa asked, hope finding a place in her breast once more.

“Oh, poor child, don’t thank me yet. Sometimes the only method of discovering mysteries is to unravel them one thread at a time, piece by piece” he smiled again, but it was now grotesque.

“Is that so?” Joffrey asked, speaking for the first time. “Piece by piece, you say?”

Sansa could not hold back her tears now, even in front of all these people she hated. There was nothing left for her now. All her hope was destroyed, and she’d done it herself.

“I only… I only prayed to the gods to be… stronger,” she stuttered, not sure why she still had the dignity to insist on that little lie.

Everyone in the room jumped a little as Cersei let out an uninhibited laugh of joy.

“Oh my sweet dove, I so desperately hope that is the truth of it. It’s just _too_ delightful!” Despite the morbid faces around her, Cersei was suddenly enjoying herself. But she _was_ drinking her fourth cup of wine.

“You’re not taking her apart. If you kill her, I’ll see you hung, drawn and quartered,” she said to Varys between chuckles. “My brother’s life rests on her head. I don’t care what she is, she stays unharmed while they have Jaime.”

“Sansa is my betrothed, mother,” Joffrey said with disturbing calm.

“She’s clearly not,” Cersei snorted, beckoning the person in question over for a refill, despite that the flask was right at the queen’s elbow.

“Well she’s still _mine_ ,” he insisted, hitting the arm of his chair with his soft little fist. “If I say Varys is to study her and find out what’s wrong with her, he will!”

Mother and son narrowed their green eyes at each other, shining like hate-filled lanterns through a dense fog.

“Let me say, there is much that can be done without harming our dear Sansa,” Varys interrupted their glares, sounding as though he was very much on Sansa’s side in all this. She knew it was just another lie though.

“Besides, there are far more pressing matters to hand,” lord Tyrion said while pinching his forehead above his eyes. “We may all be dead in a day or two and the mysterious cock of Sansa Stark will be Stannis’s problem to deal with.”

Sansa burst back into tears.

“You would love to see the heads of your sister and her children on spikes, you twisted wretch!” Cersei spat at him over the sound of weeping. “The Tyrells _will_ honor their agreement!”

“And then the king will have a new queen, which makes this strange occurrence hardly a problem,” Varys said comfortingly.

 _A new queen?_ Sansa’s tears thinned down to just snivels. This was the first she had heard of such a thing. _The Tyrells?_

“And we lose a significant claim to the North,” Tyrion complained. Varys shrugged.

“We would have to find her a bride, not a groom. And you have already sent away the princess Myrcella.”

Sansa felt her throat constrict at the thought of marrying Myrcella. Of having a _bride_. Of bedding a _woman_.

“Well, the hand of the queen mother is untaken,” Tyrion rose ascendant in his joy as Cersei’s waned.

Cersei looked at Sansa.

Sansa looked at Cersei.

With impeccably perfect symmetry, their noses scrunched up into little rosebuds of mutual loathing and disdain.

“Your grace, why don’t you give over the _lord_ Sansa to my care? Perhaps it would be best to keep her hidden from prying eyes before we know what can be done,” Varys begged Joffrey most graciously.

“I do want her out of my sight,” Joffrey said, disgust filling his voice. And probably curling his wormy little lips, but Sansa would not look at him. She could not, could _not_ , bear to see the faces of Ser Meryn and… the Hound.

“I assure you, I can take sweet Sansa where she will never be seen,” Varys bowed low. Sansa struggled to breathe.

“And everyone here keeps their mouth shut. On pain of castration and torture and perhaps, eventually, death,” Cersei slurred threateningly, seeming to take in even Joffrey with her glare. "The girl, who came and announced this, I told her to wait in Joffrey's solar. Hound, make sure she says nothing either."

Sansa shivered. The handmaiden had been the queen's creature, but...

“Will you accompany me then, my dear?” Varys rose with grace despite his ampleness, and held out a fleshy, pale hand for Sansa to take.

She appraised it with exhausted eyes. Lord Varys was not a woman, nor really a man, yet unlike Sansa, it did not make him confused or afraid.

 _He can’t be worse than Joffrey_ , she wanted to believe. _Surely, the gods did this for a reason. They led me here._

Her journey would not be over so soon.


	3. See No Evil. Hear No Evil. Speak No Evil.

Sansa sat awkwardly on the straw-filled mattress that was her new bed, in the dismal cell that was her new chambers. Which she shared with a crowd of filthy children in rags, most of them with nothing to sleep on, and all of them with large, sad eyes that stared at her as though she were a novelty.

She would have loved some privacy for herself, or even to move about freely, but she was not able to stand, for the room’s roof was low overhead, probably only rising to half the height of the Hound.

Sansa had never seen rooms with ceilings this low in the Red Keep before, but… she wasn’t even sure she was in the Keep anymore. Not long into her escort by Varys, he had insisted she wear a thick cloth around her head to cover her eyes, and then led her like a blind person through halls, down stairs, in the open on unpaved ground, up stairs… she had not the faintest idea where she, and these terribly woeful children, were located.

The previous occupant of the pallet, one of the bigger girls in the room, was crouched on the edge of it, as though to safeguard her claim.

The children, all of them, certainly reminded her of wild animals in some pitiful way. Their unnaturally focused stares, their speechlessness… Sansa would have said something to break the silence, but her mind was empty.

She couldn’t help but notice though, that the girl sitting by her was edging closer and closer, most often when Sansa looked away.

Resolute to face with noble bravery this timid, emaciated child, Sansa fixed her gaze on her in a manner as intense and unblinking as the children had on herself. The girl stayed still for a while, but then, ever so slowly, like a frightened cat seeing food in an untrusted hand, she moved closer again. Sansa waited patiently.

Eventually it was rewarded.

“Beautiful hair,” the girl whispered, so quietly that if Sansa had not seen her lips move, she might have thought she imagined it. The girl’s own sandy-colored hair was thin, wispy and straggly; more like threads of wool than hair.

“Thank you,” Sansa replied. The girl stared at her hair as though it were the finest thing she had ever seen.

“Will you help me braid it?” Sansa offered, gathering her mother’s pride and joy into a beautiful rope of copper over her shoulder.

Those wide eyes moved back to look at her, and then slowly, slowly the girl shook her head. But she said nothing.

Sansa did not know anything polite to say, so she began braiding her own hair, as well as she could reach it. Sandy-haired girl watched her with fascination. When Sansa was done, she left it on her breast in view of the girl, and the others, who had somehow managed to watch her even more intently than they already were.

To her surprise, the girl then moved openly and deliberately, taking a handful of her own ratty hair from the nape of her neck and bringing it forward to Sansa’s attention.

“Mine also?” She asked like a mouse. Sansa’s fear dissolved into tenderness. Edging to the girl’s side, she took hold of the girl’s hair and began to braid it. It was truly a mess, different lengths all over the place, dry as kindling in one spot and oily as lard in another. But this wasn’t the world of ladies and lords, and Sansa did not waver in plaiting her hair as well as she could. It was too short to stay braided for long, unlike her own.

“I have no ribbon to tie it with,” she explained, letting it go. The girl said nothing, but almost smiled.

And that was the last thing she or any of the others did, for quite some time. Sometimes children left the room, and sometimes others entered it, scuttling silently. But for the most part they sat like messily-made dolls.

Eventually Sansa grew weary just from her boredom, broken only by her miserable need to make water in the one small covered pan the room contained. It was amazing that something so simple as a girl was astonishingly difficult as a boy. Unlike the small council, the presence of the children while she was bared seemed inconsequential. She finally decided to lay down on the mattress, and was surprised once again when the sandy-haired girl instantly crawled down alongside her.

She hoped the girl might say something further, but she did not, only lay there staring into her eyes. Sansa might have thought her besotted, if she had not surmised that another child would take this girl’s place and do exactly the same, if they had the chance.

Sighing, she raised her arm and placed it gently round the girl’s shoulders. She did not resist nor respond, but it comforted Sansa, and made her warmer. It helped her go to sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

When she woke, the atmosphere of the room was much changed. There was far less light, only dim reflections from the openings that served as doors, for there were no windows. Despite the darkness Sansa could vaguely ascertain that the children were moving about with greater activity.

She could see how frequently they passed in and out as their shadows blocked the lit doorways, and there was also a new sound just on the edge of Sansa’s hearing.

It was… she leaned forward… it seemed like whispering. Many people whispering, but some distance away, repeating the same thing again and again.

Suddenly all the light was denied her as something eclipsed her vision. She could not see them, but whoever it was patted her arm and chest, stroked her almost, as though to calm her. Was it the girl from before?

“What are they saying?” She asked, her own whisper sounding like a thunderbolt.

There was only a little pause before the reply came, softly, softly:

“The city is on fire. The bay is on fire.”

Sansa shuddered. The war had come, and she was trapped in this horrible place. They were all trapped.

“Are we safe here?” She begged it to be so. She sensed movement that was the girl’s nodding. Her heart calmed.

“When it is over, the king Stannis will want to see me,” she whispered. “I will have his men come and collect you, all of you.”

She felt the girl’s hair brush her arms in such a way that Sansa could tell she was shaking her head.

“Don’t you want to be out of here?” Sansa asked, incredulous. This place was misery without pain. It was the exquisite torture of boredom and nothingness.

This time the child did not move her head either way.

Sansa forced herself to lie back down. Nothing could be done now, only after the battle was over would she know which way her fate lay.

The whispers changed once more. Now that she was paying attention, she could tell that they were moving about as they spoke, almost as though they were… passing the message along from child to child in noise barely above silence. She shuddered.

“What news?” She asked. She was one of them for now, so they should tell her too.

“The soldiers are burning,” the girl breathed, with no horror, no pity. Nothing.

_Please not the Hound. Please don't let him burn again._

Perhaps she shouldn't pray. Perhaps it would only make something worse happen to him.

Wetness dripped into her ears, and Sansa realized she was crying.

 

* * *

 

 

The next day, or what she assumed was the next day simply because it felt that a hundred numbing hours had passed in her little cell, one of the children who entered the room came directly to her, and tugged on her sleeve.

“You are to come with me,” he whispered. Sansa was so relieved she almost bowled right over him in her haste to be out of there.

The hallway outside was as low as the room. She did remember crawling blind for some time before the cloth was removed from her face, but for all she knew they had been leading her in circles in that tiny space to befuddle her.

They journeyed through what seemed like a maze of little corridors, portals to other ones visible as darker pools in the dark walls. Even without a mask, she could never have found her way around.

It wasn’t too long before she was able to stand, and walk. Her legs _ached_ from sitting as they might have ached from running too far. It didn’t make sense to Sansa.

The corridors soon had proper _doors_ instead of holes, and soon after that they were properly lit, and then floored with rushes instead of trampled earth.

By the time they reached their destination, Sansa felt almost human again.

The child escorting her, who she was no longer sure was a boy, as they were very young and very scruffy, but really who was she to judge in matters like that right now, opened a door for her, waited for her to walk through, and then closed it behind her, shutting himself out. This must be the place she was bid to go.

The chamber was round, dark bricked walls and floor that had been swept spotlessly bare. Chests and cases and bottles were stacked in two messy little piles on opposite sides of the room.

A bent old crone shuffled over to her as soon as she spotted her, though when she came closer Sansa was most annoyed to see that she had almost enough whiskers to make a billy goat beard, and so perhaps was _not_ a crone at all.

Was this why she was brought here? Amongst others who were… like her? Neither one nor the other?

_Well it is better than being beaten, for now_ , she reasoned, and allowed herself to be guided into the center of the room.

In the very middle, wooden planks were set into the stone floor, with gaps between them almost the width of two of her fingers. The planks did not appear to rest on anything - underneath there was only darkness.

_I will not look. I will not see._

“Sit, and rest,” her new guide bid her, and so she did. The wood was not so cold as all the floors she’d crawled upon had been, so her spirits were lifted.

The old… man busied himself scurrying between the two piles of goods, gathering a thing, picking up that, measuring out an amount of something else.

This was riveting action to Sansa after her days with the silent children. They had perhaps rubbed off on her a little, as she felt no desire to speak.

A different door to the one she entered via opened, and she was almost delighted to see lord Varys appear. It was spoiled by his insincere smile, and that his usual rich robes had been replaced with very plain and baggy breeches and a rough-spun tunic with sleeves rolled up to his fat elbows.

She no longer believed she had escaped the silent room; rather, she thought she might want to escape _back_ there.

Varys nodded in acknowledgement of her, but said nothing. Sansa was displeased.

“How fared the battle, my lord?” She asked loudly, to fight this void.

“We are so very fortunate that the good sense of lord Tyrion and the speedy arrival of his father's army kept the city and the king from ruin,” Varys reported airily, words said without any conviction or care.

_From ruin, but not from fire_ , she thought. If the girl had told it true.

“I am very pleased to hear it,” she chirped. Varys gave another of his maddening smiles.

“Surely child, you have seen enough by now to know you can keep no secrets from me.”

But there _were_ secrets, those that had never been written nor said. _Being of a kind with Varys does not make him my ally._

While she had been watching Varys, the bearded crone slipped up behind her, and gently but firmly pushed down on her with sinewy hands.

“Lie down, dearling,” the man asked, and though she did not want to, she did anyway. Some of her body rested on the planks and other parts fell across the gaps, so that she had the sensation of falling and being secure at the same time.

She heard things, both heavy and light, being placed near her head on both sides. The hollow clunk of pottery. The tinny clink of thin metal. She could turn her head and perhaps see what was going on.

_I will not look. I will not see._

“Try to relax, child,” the crone-man’s voice was too much of a croak to ever be soothing.

Sansa did not believe she could ever be _less_ relaxed. If it were possible, she would crawl out of her skin like a shedding snake.

“Don’t fret,” Varys tutted her from somewhere behind. A cold hand pressed on her forehead.

“You will feel nothing.”

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, OK, next chapter the Hound gets some lines besides “Loom menacingly, stage left”.
> 
> Bonus for those who struggle to visualize pretty, pretty boy Sansa, here are some lovely examples courtesy of Konstantin Kudin and Björn Andrésen:
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> (I'm too old for this picset shit)


	4. Testosterone is One Hell of a Drug

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may notice Boros has magically transformed into Meryn in this chapter, due to my not checking timelines beforehand.  
> Unlike Sansa, he was OK with the change.

When Sansa awoke, she felt different. Instantly her hands delved between her thighs, only to grasp a warm handful of tragic disappointment.

No, what felt different was that she was... itchy. Very itchy, everywhere. She sat up and looked over herself as well as she could in the murky light.

She was aghast to see faint, almost cobweb-thin but unbroken lines were scratched into her skin, seeming to follow the position of her bones. The scratch on the back of her hands split into five lines, each one going down to the quick of her fingernails. But she couldn't much worry about those, for running parallel to the scratched lines were thick ribbons of dried blood. Sansa swooned. She could smell it.

_My blood?_ It was so thick as to be almost black, the lines over her joints cracking and flaking off in sizeable fragments. The scratches were still red, but so thin they could never have bled more than a drop. And surely she would feel pain of some kind to lose this much blood. The thicker lines were clean and even, as though painted on by a brush.

_Whose blood is this?_ She panicked, rubbing at her arms, her legs, her chest. More flaked off, but most remained, dried like mortar and increasing her itching to a fever pitch. A familiar-smelling hand pushed against her to still her frenzy.

Sansa grasped the shoulders of the sandy-haired girl, heart pounding. With trembling hands she ran over what skin of the girl she could touch, then lifted the cloth of her threadbare tunic.

No wounds. No scratches. No lines of thick crimson blood.

The girl was still pawing at her, trying to still her. Sansa stilled, but could not stop herself from shaking. She looked over her nude legs, and chest. Lines everywhere, both the thin and the thick, lines marking out her ribs, circling in great whorls over her hips…she turned her arms and saw more markings on the underside. And the backs of her legs. Of course, Varys and his monstrous servant had left the abominable manhood untouched.

_These children aren’t here for reasons like mine. What does he mean for them? What does he mean for **me**?_

She had been a fool to trust Varys’s motives. She shook harder remembering what he had said about discovering mysteries by taking them apart piece by piece.

There was no comfort from the girl lying beside her anymore. Sansa lay there, heartsick and sore, until she was startled to hear a whisper she could understand.

“You are to come with me.” A messy boy was crouched nearby, holding a bundle of rough cloth. Her bedmate scuttled away without a word.

Sansa’s stomach was an empty pit.

When had she last ate? They didn’t feed prisoners they weren’t going to keep alive. How could she send word to the queen?

“Your clothes,” the boy beckoned her to take his parcel.

Sansa spread out the bundle. A long-sleeved but simple dress, laced at the front, and a very voluminous and thick shawl.

_To hide these vile markings_ , she guessed. Though she wasn’t sure why Varys would bother.

Sansa shuffled into the dress as well as she could in the limited space. By the time it was laced up and the shawl around her, she had broken a sweat. She followed the boy into the dark maze, refusing to think about what lay ahead.

As soon as they entered a tunnel tall enough to stand, the boy pulled another cloth from under his tunic and gestured at her. The mask. She turned around and got back on her knees with some relief. Perhaps she was not going back to the round chamber.

Their journey _did_ seem to take longer than the last, and when Sansa’s mask was removed, she faced Meryn Trant and the Hound. Neither looked particularly burned. _Thank the gods._

She heard her guide scuttle away behind her, and turned to see that she had exited a strange hallway, the uneven walls of which met in the middle to form a peaked roof. It was a small and peculiar wedge shaped hole in a badly mortared stone wall. She was outdoors, and the sky was dark, but this did seem like the grounds of the Red Keep.

“Cover your hair as well, and your face,” Ser Meryn snapped, grasping her shawl to roughly pull it up over her head.

“Yes, ser,” she peeped, righting it and draping it more neatly. Trant assessed her disguise with a glaring face, then nodded with satisfaction.

“Come along,” he ordered, tugging her arm to start her walking. Neither offered her his arm, nor did they walk behind, but alongside, not even measuring their pace to avoid overtaking her.

_I am still a Stark of Winterfell_ , she thought bitterly. _Still a lord, if not a lady. Aren’t I due even that respect?_ She was expecting respect from Trant and the Hound? She shook her head.

She was puzzled to see that while Trant had his kingsguard armor and cloak, the Hound wore his old darkened plate, and a plain brown cloak. She had not seen him without his white cloak since Joffrey had been crowned.

Ser Meryn must have observed her confused look one of the times he glanced back at her.

“I see you notice the cloak of the kingsguard has finally had all the mongrel hair shaken from it,” he snickered. The Hound slid his eyes across to Trant’s face, but said nothing.

“I thought the kingsguard was for life,” she said hesitantly.

“He never swore a vow for it, and should never have had it. Thankfully his grace saw sense when this mutt passed out on the battlefield before the Lannister army even arrived. The Imp had to lead his men! I think he drank enough wine to fill the blackwater bay!” Meryn said this with a practiced lilt in his voice that told her he had not thought of this witticism himself, but was repeating someone else’s.

Still the Hound did not defend himself, nor even sneer or snarl. _He is as unyielding as his armor._

This was how a soldier held himself against both attacks of the blade and the tongue. Sansa determined to do likewise.

“The queen demanded no-one else see you,” Trant continued to complain, as though the very presence of Clegane was an insult to him.

“The queen is wise,” Sansa said obediently. “As is the king.”

_Not so wise at all, to relinquish the protection of his finest warrior, drunk or not_. Sansa remembered the fight between Clegane brothers at her father’s tourney.

That seemed to satiate Trant’s complaint, and they continued on in familiar silence.

When the approached the king’s chambers, Sansa spied Oakheart standing guard at the door, and lowered her head further so almost nothing of her could be seen. People knowing of her condition had only brought her misery so far.

They entered to find Joffrey sprawling sideways across the armrests of a lushly-upholstered chair, his feet resting on its companion.

“Ah!” He made a cry of glee. “My grotesque wolf bitch has arrived.” He took a relaxed drink from his goblet of wine while the two guards ushered her over towards him.

“I don’t believe it prudent for a king to blindly trust the words of even his supposedly _learned_ advisors,” he explained as he lazily stood. “A wise man trusts only what his own eyes have revealed to him,” his smug smile told her what was coming before he opened his mouth again.

“Help the _lovely_ Sansa out of her dress so her unique qualities can be displayed,” he oozed out.

Something in Sansa, something new, made her suddenly feel very brave. Or very stupid.

“Don't you have one of your own to look at?” She squawked.

It was a terrible thing to say. Joffrey’s face darkened and he opened his sneering mouth, but then abruptly looked to Sansa’s right with just as much anger.

“What are you smiling at, Ser Meryn?” he snapped, eyes flashing. Sansa heard the creaking of chainmail and armor as Trant shifted nervously.

“Just thought it funny, your grace, that a cock has made even this pitiful thing bold.”

Sansa kept her back straight, undaunted. Joffrey did not look sufficiently mollified.

“Take your stupid face out of this room, and make sure nobody bothers me,” the king snapped. He, and thus both of the others, waited in silence while Trant bowed and left.

Then Joffrey returned his attention to his favorite victim.

“I thought you were taught a long time ago not to speak when you weren’t asked to,” his scathing tone made clear his intentions for her. He glared at the Hound.

“Punish her!” he crowed with satisfaction.

Clegane made a deep rumbling sound. “I thought your grace had made that allowance for his dog,” he said like an off-hand suggestion.

“No, you made all that pitiful yelping about hitting little girls, but she's not a girl anymore!” Joffrey screeched petulantly.

The Hound, until now focused ahead like an alert canine, turned his head slowly to look at Sansa directly.

It was the first time they had locked eyes since her... change. She had thought the shame would crush her, but she saw no revulsion or judgement in his gaze, and felt braver for it. _Is this what you always wanted from me?_

“She still looks a girl,” Clegane grumbled, as though genuinely displeased he did not find her suitable to beat. Joffrey made a noise of intense frustration, but seemed to not be too keen to push the Hound as he would anyone else.

“Get her- get these stupid rags off her, I want to see and make _sure_ this isn’t a trick,” Joffrey demanded.

Before the Hound could reach for her or debate her suitability for being stripped, Sansa grappled the ties on her bodice herself, pulling them apart roughly and swiftly. Joffrey ogled at her with his mouth open, but said nothing to stop her.

_They have seen you humiliated already once, twice! I shall likely be made to expose myself a hundred times! Let me at least be free of men’s hands as I wished for!_

When it was loose enough she wrestled off the shawl, pulled her arms out of the sleeves and then threw down the dress to her ankles defiantly.

Joffrey's eyes almost bulged from his head.

“What... is _that_?” He screeched in shock.

“Lord Varys has not been idle... your grace,” she could not hide her bitterness.

The sight of her had the strange effect of rendering the normally foul Joffrey quiet and almost thoughtful. He began to inspect her, walking around her and behind, seeing where the lines of blood were faded from her rubbing, and where they were still densely painted.

“What was the purpose of all this?” He asked, genuinely curious.

“I do not know, your grace. I was... somehow made to sleep, and when I awoke I… found I had been gifted another unpleasant surprise,” she muttered sullenly.

“You're so _useless_ ,” Joffrey snapped, but remained captivated by her morbid adornment.

“Does it hurt?” He asked, grinning as he pressed hard on one of the blood lines marking her ribs.

“No,” she declared impassively. Hurt no more than his cold bony finger digging into her. His smile melted into a scowl.

“I want Varys to explain this to me,” he demanded.

“I shall be sure to tell him when I see him next,” Sansa bowed her head. Should she bow now instead of curtsey? The question intrigued her.

"I will be asking someone competent to fetch him, fool,” the king scoffed. He tapped his fingers against his thigh impatiently as he regarded Sansa. For her part, she stopped feeling as much ashamed at being naked. Joffrey no longer leered at her, just as she had wished for. Though he did still have a disconcerting hunger in his expression.

Finally his grace sighed with a mixture of boredom and defeat.

“Take her away for now, dog. And tell the Spider that he will bring Sansa to me after each of his experiments, for my… enlightenment.”

Sansa bent to gather up her shawl and dress, but had only shuffled her arms into it before the Hound took her elbow in an undemanding grip and tugged her softly to the chamber door. He stopped to ensure her hair and face were well covered before opening it, but then set a brisk pace back to her latest cage, waving off Trant when he made to join them.

Sansa struggled to retie her dress as she hurried. Though she hadn’t really any modesty to protect, she still could not bear the thought of being seen in such a state.

She took a renewed interest in the tapestries and adornments of the royal apartments as they left, and even the lesser parts of the Keep had a fresh appeal now she knew where she was going.

_I am once more shown what I took for granted before I lost it._

Between the hurried walk and her contemplation, Sansa was too distracted to notice the Hound had stopped and turned to her until she walked directly into his breastplate.

She looked up at his face in shock as she held a hand to her bruised nose. Clegane’s expression remained guarded and hateful, but held a tense edge of disquiet as well.

“What are they doing to you, little bird?” His voice like the shifting of gravel underfoot.

Sansa lost sight of his earnest question in a sudden swell of unexpected delight.

“I am still a little bird?” She whispered back, wishing she did not sound so much like a moonstruck maid.

His eyes brushed over every plane of her face, poured down her neck and swept her collar, and lower. It disappointed her, she realized, for him to see her like this, and did not know why.

Their gaze met once more, and his eyes were disarmingly open, like something behind his anger was peeking through.

“You'll always be a little bird,” he scraped reluctantly out of his burnt throat.

They walked back to the wedge corridor in silence. A different urchin from before was waiting there, the blindmask in his hands. The Hound grabbed it from him and dressed her face with it gently; the knots secure but not too tight.

Sansa did not hear his footsteps departing as the boy took her hand and led her into the shadows.

The darkness was not so fearful now, when she had a flame in her heart.


	5. Sansa, Queen Elizabeth Tudor Would Be Ashamed of You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The silence of my readers is a clear accusation: “Where is all the homoerotic sex I was promised??” Never fear, only a bit more tedious plot to endure!

Sansa’s fear of being starved proved ill-founded. It seemed she had slept too much in the days before, and missed the food basket that was passed around. The children shared it with her unthinkingly, as though everyone in the room should of course have a portion.

It was flat, hard biscuits, that still tasted of unbaked flour. Before now, Sansa imagined these skinny creatures would have eaten ravenously like wild things, but instead they all ate hungrily but methodically, neither savoring their food nor revolted by it.

Resigned.

The sprawling city of the royal seat had been the object of Sansa’s fantasies for all her youth, yet she should have trusted her nose. When the party from Winterfell entered King’s Landing, she was sorely disappointed to learn that it _stank_.

Sansa was sure evils like this did not exist in Winterfell. The Northmen were honest and true, even if many of them cared little for knighthood. Maybe that was why.

Men should protect women and children! Else they were nothing but monsters, vulgarly using the weak at their whim.

_Which am I now? Protector or prey?_

She thought on this as she lay on the horrible little bed. Sansa had little else to contemplate; she had already spent much time remembering the lessons from her maester, sermons from her septa, and all the people she cherished from her childhood.

Her brooding was interrupted by the return of the girl whose hair she had plaited. The child had left several times, and Sansa had to admit this had given her some relief. The girl had not spoken to her today, despite Sansa trying to encourage discussion, if only to appease herself. As she snuggled up to her side, Sansa realized one question she shamefully hadn’t yet asked.

“What's your name?” She whispered as quiet as she could. The girl appeared to struggle with this, but it pleased Sansa that she meant to answer.

“I have no name," she eventually sighed softly.

Sansa tried not to be annoyed with her. "What did your mother call you?"

“I have no mother,” she managed to whisper. Unlike the days before, each word seemed to be as much effort to the girl as lifting a great rock above her head.

“Everyone has a mother," Sansa scolded her. The sandy-haired girl gave no response, but moved closer, as if deciding simply conversing about names had moved them to a new level of familiarity.

Her broad and dirty face nudged closer and closer to Sansa's own. _Will she kiss me?_ She wondered. The girl's lips came closer again. Sansa's head moved back before she knew what she was doing. The girl's movement stilled, except for the darting to and fro of her shining spherical eyes.

She must have read the truth in Sansa’s face, for she turned onto her back, closed her eyes and made to sleep. Sansa was left restless with all her previous questions, and new ones as well. Was this what she should expect? Kisses from women, as timid and gentle as she used to be?

Sansa tucked her chin down, and curled up her hands to rest against her lips. She didn't hate the thought of the sad girl stealing a kiss from her but... she didn't relish it either.

 _The gods have given me this, the body and strength of a man_ , she reasoned. _But my heart and stomach will always be that of a woman._

She would not die here. She would grow stronger. She would protect children like these, where others turned away.

 _Does it not make light of the many prayers the gods must hear and not answer, to scorn the one they did?_ At least, answered in such a tangible way. _This is not a gift I ever wanted, but I will accept it nonetheless._

Sansa Stark breathed out her last breath.

Then took in his first.

 

* * *

 

 

When Sansa finally heard the words again – “You are to come with me” – he rose from the bed of straw with new determination. It was quickly quenched by the sight of the others in the room. With suddenness and not even the sound of whispers to spread the word, every child raised their hands to cover their eyes.

 _The change was only in my heart. Surely none else can see_ , he hoped that could be the only cause of this chilling behavior.

The child sent to guide him beckoned him to move quickly, which he did his best to do, tying the skirts of his dress into a weighty knot so he could crawl faster.

There was no blindmask this time, but Sansa was determined not to care. _No matter what they do to me, I will not beg them. I will not yield._

His spine was forged of Valyrian steel.

But they did not come to the round chamber. Instead Sansa was surprised to find they eventually entered a corridor where the walls peaked together as a ceiling. The wedge hallway. Her guide stopped.

“Go alone,” the tiny voice commanded. The boy pushed past Sansa to go back into the mazes, a difficult feat even for two small-bodied souls such as themselves.

Sansa walked on alone. It took longer to traverse it than he imagined. What wall was so thick? It was dark again once he made it outside, and only a lone figure was waiting for him. A pleased smile broke unbidden onto Sansa’s face. Any small pleasure was a victory in these days.

Without speaking, Clegane took Sansa’s shawl in hand and arranged it gently to cover him almost completely. When he was satisfied with his handiwork he took Sansa by the elbow and lead him away.

Their route was different, and they soon came upon the royal kennels. Clegane led him through the gate, and past the stalls of chained-up dogs. They all watched attentively but none barked. A few even approached Sandor, whimpering for attention.

But the Hound sped past them, ushering Sansa inside a squat, unpleasant-smelling building.

“There’s a tunic and breeches on the floor,” he rasped for the first time that night. “Change into them, but keep the shawl.”

Sansa was befuddled. Why did he need to wear breeches to his next audience, whatever that was? Perhaps someone had decided it was more suitable, and Sansa was a bit irritated that he agreed.

When he emerged, Clegane looked him over quickly and merely nodded. Sansa found he had been hoping for something else. He was led back out of the kennels and to a formidable black horse tied up on its outer wall.

Despite the many strange things he had recently seen, Sansa felt confused. Though he had newly resolved to do no pleading with his captors, the fact it was the Hound alone made the promise feel less binding.

“Where am I being taken?” he asked.

Clegane eyed him warily, but dodged in close, whispering “To your mother,” into his blushing ears.

Sansa’s world shook.

“Why?” He asked, hating that he felt so much hope on such an unlikely prospect.

“Now’s not the time to talk. Ask later,” the Hound warned quietly.

“But… what of the children?” Sansa asked.

“What children?”

“The ones whom I was imprisoned with… there are so many of them, captive in tunnels underground,” he explained. The Hound shook his head.

“There’s nothing to be done for them,” he shrugged, as if enslaved children were an everyday occurrence.

“I am a man now,” Sansa insisted with his newfound fervor. “It is my duty to protect the innocent, and children, and they are both!”

“You can’t save everyone, you little fool! Haven’t you seen that yet? Yet?” Sandor shook him gently. “Even if you could slay a man with a touch, you would still not be able to free every sufferer and right every wrong in your lifetime,” His words shook Sansa more than his actions.

“But shouldn’t I try?” He had only made one commitment in his new life, and already was to break it.

“Try, and find yourself dead, having saved no-one.” Clegane spat.

“Yet you make as if to save me this night,” Sansa retorted.

“You’ll know the difference one day, if you live long enough to be grown. I’ve lost everything to do this, Sansa! If you want to see your family again, stop being a fool!” His name on Sandor’s lips was a weightier entreaty than any other.

“I will obey,” he promised. Sandor grasped him around the waist and lifted him to sit on the tall horse, sidesaddle as he had always previously ridden. He swung his right leg over the saddle just before Clegane was to mount. The older man gave him a raised eyebrow, but continued on without a word. Once more, Sansa felt strangely empty.

They rode out of the Keep, out into the city. It was very queer to Sansa that he did not need fear being recognized. Their destination ended up being the harbor, which was mostly destroyed. Despite this, many ships were anchored in the bay, waiting a chance to unload their wares to a city desperate for food and goods.

“By sea?” Sansa whispered to Clegane’s ear, or as close to his ear as he could reach.

“To Maidenpool,” was the scratchy reply.

The boat they approached was clearly in a rush, men dashing all over it despite the late hour. The sole man standing still in all this regarded the Hound’s approach with bored recognition.

Clegane dismounted before him, but left Sansa in the saddle. He gave the man no formalities, but leapt straight into business.

“Two men. One horse. 100 dragons, as agreed,” The Hound said with a tone that indicated threats could be arranged if he was not pleased.

 _A hundred dragons?_ Sansa thought with icy shock. That price could sail them round the world, surely.

“200,” the man who must be captain drawled. Sansa gasped.

“120,” Clegane growled, threats buckling up their sword-belt and putting on boots.

“100 for you two, and 50 for the horse,” the man punctuated his words by spitting on the pier.

“Done,” Sandor agreed. He took one of the saddlebags off and fished out one very large pouch, and two small ones, all singing the metallic song of coins. The man needed both hands to take them. He nodded to his deckhands.

“Board. We’ll sail once I’ve counted it out.”

They were taken below the deck, the stallion sent into a stall really too small for him, and Sansa and the Hound into a cramped cabin definitely too small for the both of them. It didn’t even have a bed, but Sandor gathered some hay from the horse’s stall.

Once they were alone, Sansa felt he had to speak.

“No voyage to Maidenpool costs 100 dragons,” Sansa accused. “Where are you taking me?”

Clegane laughed harshly, but kept his voice low so others could not hear. “We’re not sailing there as passengers, little bird, we’re being smuggled. Trade between the Riverlands and those loyal to the King is restricted. Or meant to be. Besides, he had to be paid well to keep his mouth shut. Though of course he won’t,” he grimaced.

“Then why pay it?” Sansa asked, still ill at ease.

“Because such a high price will make him keep it shut until he finds the ear of someone he thinks rich enough to afford such costly information. That time should be enough for us,” and so saying, he sat upon their saddlebags, piled on the floor by the impromptu pallet.

Sansa sat down on the straw with his legs demurely drawn to one side. He realized his error and, with considerable awkwardness, crossed his legs to sit like Arya and his brothers used to. It wasn’t too uncomfortable, though his ankles complained.

Clegane watched all this with an amused smile. It made Sansa even more irritated, and he could not keep further concerns from pouring out.

“Why are you doing this?” He whispered. How desperately he wished this could be true, and not another lie or farce or trick.

“The king wasn’t going to kill you as lady Stark. You were much too valuable to him for that,” Clegane grunted, and Sansa frowned.

“I am no less valuable now than before, my family will still recognize me!” He said as defiantly as he could in a hush.

“You think your value was your name?” The Hound turned on him. “You know it wasn’t. You were a pretty toy, and now you’re nothing he wants to play with.”

Sansa struggled to swallow against a lump in his throat. “Did the queen make you do this? Am I to be exchanged for Ser Jaime at last?” He asked, the best situation he could imagine, and desperately wanted to be told was real.

“I couldn’t give a fuck for the queen or her brother,” he snapped. “Or the king,” he made as an afterthought. “You think I waded out into that riot for them?”

“Of course,” Sansa protested. “You’ve faithfully served house Lannister all your life, is that not so?”

“Yes,” he huffed a bitter laugh. “I have. But bugger them, and their wars and their wildfire. I can find some other master to serve.”

“Why would you? The Lannisters have given you all you have. Why would you betray them?” Sansa accused.

“Even a dog gets tired of being kicked,” he gruffed. Sansa frowned, sorrow for this mangled second son filling him even at this inopportune moment.

“What kick was harder than going back into a fire for them? For Joffrey? Why didn’t you leave then, or any time since then, if kicks are what drove you to flee?”

Sandor’s eyes searched his silently, painfully.

“Dogs maybe sometime deserve a kick or two. But your sort should never be kicked at all,” he finally mumbled.

“My sort?” Sansa wasn’t sure how this made him feel.

“Aye, birds and little timid creatures. You gave them no trouble,” he was watching the wall behind Sansa’s head now, maybe to lessen the sudden intimacy, or maybe to conceal a lie.

“How do I know I can trust you?” Sansa asked. _A dog will die for you, but never lie to you._

Sandor narrowed his eyes at him, flicking them across his face.

“You don’t,” he finally announced gratingly. “You’ll just have to wait and see whether my word is true.”

An answer that was completely unsatisfying, yet the tension bled from Sansa’s bones. _I am only relieved to be spoken to with honesty_ , he reminded himself. _That was not cause to trust him._

He made a decision, even though it would change nothing if he felt otherwise. “Alright, I will wait and see if you are as honest as you claim.”

Clegane smiled confidently at him. The tingle of hope that this was real pulled something more out of Sansa before he could think better of it.

“You have always been so brave for me,” he whispered. The Hound’s face was immediately murderous.

“Brave? It’s not brave for a dog to kill rats! Nor let a little girl be beaten!” he hissed, his large hands clenching on his thighs.

“Or a boy?” Sansa asked cautiously. Sandor looked away, not quite sneering.

“Boy or girl, you’re a pretty sight. I’m sure half the knights of the court fancied to have a kiss and a song from you,” he looked at him again then, and smiled grimly. “Maybe even after your change. Is that very sweet, little bird?”

Sansa’s face colored. Truthfully he did not know. He hadn’t wanted to… to kiss the sandy-haired girl he shared a bed with, and the thought of warm, strong arms encircling him and caressing him… his face reddened so much he could hardly see, and he turned away. Too late to avoid Clegane noticing though.

His coarse laughter filled up the air of the tiny cabin.


	6. A Bird In The Hand Is Probably Going To Get Its Feathers Quite Ruffled

Despite being confined to the little cabin, more like a hidey-hole really, at Sandor's express command, Sansa had been nervously excited all day. Clegane had warned him off talking about any of their future plans but he couldn’t stop Sansa from _thinking_ about them.

His mother, his brothers… what his new duty would be to Robb if they believed Sansa’s story was true, which they simply _must_. It would surely be his duty now to join Robb’s rebellion against the crown, his war. But Sansa couldn’t yet wield a sword or ride a horse. He wondered if the Hound would be willing to teach him. He wasn’t really sure he _wanted_ to fight and try to kill another man, but his duty to his family was clear.

When it came time to sleep that night, Sansa helped Clegane out of some of his plate, feeling the weight of it as he set it down, marvelling at just how strong the Hound really was. He wasn’t sure if it excited him out of a desire to be like Sandor, or just at witnessing such an overwhelming spectacle.

Clegane had tried to sleep sitting atop their pile of saddlebags and armor, but he shifted so restlessly Sansa had eventually suggested he sleep beside him on the deck. There was barely room for the two of them, but he assured Sandor there was no need for concern, as he was no longer a maid. Sandor had grumbled something, but finally laid his cloak next to the straw and stretched out to sleep.

Pressed right up against Sansa.

And thus he discovered that it was not the Hound who needed to be concerned, but Sansa himself.

Sansa had never shared a bed with someone so…

**Big.**

And Sansa had never before had a bedmate whose every movement against his own body revealed the motion of solid muscle contracting and relaxing. Nor could Sansa ignore the way Clegane smelled.

Of course, the tiny cabin had been musty soon after they entered, but lying down beside him now, Sansa was _overwhelmed_ by a salty musk. And he wasn’t really unhappy about it.

All in all, this new experience had provided such a strong assortment of sensations that he was completely unable to fall asleep, and completely unable to not think about the cause of his not being able to sleep.

Also, his manhood had become very hard.

Sansa knew vaguely that something like this happened, but only when a man went to lay with a woman. Even if his body was just… still confused about what its role in bed should be, there was certainly nothing about to happen, and yet no matter how much he tried to relax and will this situation away, there was no change.

He sensed he would get a little relief from squirming around. Maybe he was still overcome with nerves from their escape. But he didn’t want to disturb Sandor’s sleep, so he lay still as he could, breathing deeply.

Breathing in the scent of sweat and metal and leather.

It was a very long night.

 

* * *

  

When Sansa awoke, his not-so-little problem had not gone away. And what was worse, it ached. What _was_ gone, was the presence of the man beside him. He felt quite lonely and a bit sad until he decided he should actually be relieved to have some privacy to deal with this problem.

He examined himself cautiously, and found that he had a terrible urge to make water. He had never heard of that making a manhood stiff, but… of _course_ he had never heard about that. He put the shawl over his head, draping down in front to hide himself and scuttled to the privy.

He returned disappointed, with no change to his condition. He opened the door of the cabin and the Hound looked up at him, mouth full of bread. Sansa yelped and slammed shut the door. Then he realized what a fool he was and opened it again, slowly, entering quietly, as though the first time had not happened at all.

With the shawl kept well gathered at his front of course. He edged to the pallet and sat curled up at the farthest point from Clegane.

Through all this the Hound watched him as though he were a mummer putting on a play. Attentive, quiet, and clearly curious about what he was going to do next. If Sandor hadn’t saved him from a certainly terrible fate, Sansa would quite resent him.

He also resented that Sandor decided to break the silence.

“Something troubling you, little bird?” He asked with not even a bit of genuine concern.

“NO!” Sansa instantly yelped. “No, no, I am quite fine,” he continued smoothly.

The Hound went back to silently watching him.

“Is there some reason you look at me thus?” Sansa asked primly, hoping to shame away his attention.

“Well, with you one never knows. You might be about to change forms.”

Sansa gave Clegane the imperious glare of his lady mother, then decided he should actually use the stern face of his father, but his best effort only made the Hound chuckle.

“Such an angry little thing. No fear, I won’t rebuke you for being rude to a dog. It can’t be easy for you right now,” he smirked, but with almost natural affection.

“It isn’t. Oh, it isn’t!” Sansa was moved to confess. “I think there… there might be something wrong with me,” he fretted.

“What’s that? Tell it to me, gi-,” he paused awkwardly. Sansa could have relished this delightful irony if he hadn’t more pressing concerns.

“I… do not know how men speak amongst each other,” he began nervously. “So please forgive me if I speak too plainly, and I will wait until I can find a maester. I don’t wish to offend you.”

Sandor shrugged. “There’s little on this earth can shock me little bird, though if anyone could, it’d be you,” he took another bite of his breakfast.

“My…,” What was a delicate way to phrase this? “My manhood is different from how it was yesterday.”

Sandor’s brow scrunched together as much as it could with the scarring. “Changing back into a girl?” He asked around his bread.

“No, no, you see it’s… bigger, and-“

Clegane started laughing at him.

“Poor little bugger. You had me worried. I’ll go find something to drink and give you some time. Just tug on it an’ it’ll be right,” he stood to leave.

“Wait! I don’t understand. _Tug_ it? I don’t know how,” this conversation was making him blush, but he needed less cryptic advice.

“D’you imagine men are born knowing these things? You just touch it and figure out what you like. Surely you did as much when you had a cunt,” Sandor reasoned.

Sansa colored even more at his words. “I did _not_!” He insisted.

“What a wasted opportunity,” the Hound mused, suddenly philosophical. “You could have been the one fellow on earth who knew what women really wanted.” He huffed out a sigh, then remembered Sansa’s complaint.

“You can always get a whore to show you how. Or suck on it for you. Or both,” he grinned toothily. Sansa shuddered.

“ _Suck_ it? Surely you don’t mean…”

“Like an orange, yes,” Clegane was now shedding amusement like Lady used to shed fur. “Well, no actually, not so much like that, got to avoid teeth.” He smiled, a real, true smile, and at exactly the worst moment to do such a thing. “You should see your face,” he said with glee.

Sansa realised he had been twisting up his mouth and eyes and cheeks with horror.

“This isn’t,” he paused, and started again, “I’m sure that is not how I am meant to handle this. It’s… it’s not proper for a lady to do such a thing, so it must not be for a lord either,” Sansa reasoned.

The Hound laughed so hard Sansa almost went deaf.

“Little bird,” he managed after the worst was over. “I’ve known a lot of lords in my sorry life. Probably far more than you. And I’d bet you every unrotten tooth I have that all of ‘em have done for themselves like I’m telling you to. Gods, it’s easy to see why, keeping their noble women as tepid and dull as bathwater you’re the last to use,” he made a variety of gestures during this declaration that Sansa decided to pretend not to have seen.

“I would have been very glad to be _dull_ , in Joffrey’s bed,” he murmured darkly. Clegane’s cheerful amusement dissolved.

“Well, mayhaps you’ll decide my wisdom in saving you from that extends to other things,” he snipped, and left their cabin without another word.

For the first five minutes Sansa sat resolute, determined to ignore Sandor’s words.

But he _did_ ache, more actually since they had talked about it, and he really would prefer this nonsense to stop. He lay back down where he’d slept, and with cautious hands, as though capable of hurting himself, he unlaced his breeches and explored the new part of him he’d been loathe to touch.

It was so strange, so sensitive, and it was a… a little nice, to tug it, Sansa learned with heat rising up his neck. Though it chafed a little, so he licked his fingers and moistened it. This improved things, so he tried pulling it a bit more, and a bit harder.

It was nice, nice, sinfully, deliciously nice. Why had he never felt this as a girl? The Hound had said he could have done something even then but… Sansa hadn’t known what, or how. This was fairly easy now he understood the idea.

He thought more about Sandor’s words, about oranges, and whores, and that made him squirm around some, though when he tried to picture a girl doing so to him, the sad face of the sandy-haired girl appeared, and he almost lost all his joy. But it only softened a little, and not enough to appease him.

He tried again, stroking gently, just enjoying it, not thinking about girls or fruit. He wondered what other men thought of when they did this. A lightning bolt of comprehension struck him. _The Hound does this._ He’d _said_ every man did this. _Every_ man.

A vision pushed its way into his mind as tactlessly as the man it portrayed. Sandor’s broad shoulders that he’d touched while helping him remove his armor. His body taut with muscles Sansa had felt as Sandor slept beside him. His hair-dusted arms, of which he only needed one to lift Sansa aloft. Sandor’s thick-fingered hands holding his own cock like Sansa did now, and–

And he was overcome. He almost choked on his own breath, coughed it out and then sucked lungfuls back in again, whining with distress.

It was horrible and marvelous, and not just where his hands were but all of him, a deep enjoyment wrung out from his marrow. He only now noticed he was sweating.

He tried to get up but he was weak in every joint. Perhaps he should just go to sleep, as the bed beckoned him to do. Then he noticed that his shawl that had laid between him and the straw had a patch of sticky wetness that had come from him. _Is this… a man’s seed?_ It wasn’t pleasant.

He couldn’t let any evidence of this remain. Trembling but determined, he clothed himself anew and gathered up the shawl over his shoulders, careful to hold apart the wet portion. It wasn’t too hard to find a washwater bucket to scrub it in. It was a shame his embarrassment could not be so easily cleansed.

 

* * *

 

 

Clegane did not return until most of the day was gone, arriving with food for Sansa and wine for himself, though he had clearly already indulged quite a bit.

“You alright now, then?” He asked with a dark look. Sansa took the bread from him wordlessly and ignored him as he ate.

Clegane sighed, or growled. A bit of both. “Pay me no mind. You really didn’t know what you were in for, did you little bird? When you made that wish.”

Sansa felt the burden of his lie, tiny as it was, weigh on him in the presence of someone who claimed to always be honest with him.

“I know you were there, when I told the queen and king… that the gods gave me this change after I prayed to be stronger,” he picked at the bread now.

Sandor gave him an impenetrable look, a face that said he had seen nothing and heard nothing. But then allowed him the slightest nod.

“That was not wholly true…,” he coughed. Clegane’s eyes narrowed. “I _did_ pray that night, and I believe the gods answered me but… it was not strength I prayed for. It was to avoid the stares and leers that men of the court placed on me. Even men I wished to trust,” he thought of Ser Dontos, whose offers of escape came hand in hand with unwanted kisses and caresses. He wondered if his Florian would have even cared to rescue him at all if he saw Sansa was no longer his Jonquil.

Hah!” The Hound barked. “I suppose I’ve defied the gods then, to heed you after they meant to turn my eyes away. Good! They deserve my scorn, and yours too!”

Sansa sighed peevishly. “I don’t mean just _looking_. More people have seen me unclothed and looked harder than ever now I am a man,” he pointed out. “I mean they looked at me as though I were on a platter to be eaten, or as if they were thinking of a jape at my expense, as though they were…,” he trailed off, struggling for clarity.

“As though they wanted to fuck you, and didn’t give a shit what you thought of it,” The Hound supplied, crudely and astutely.

“Yes,” Sansa said demurely. Why did he feel demure about men fucking him even now? He refocused on his point. “You did not look at me that way. You have always looked at me as if you wanted to know what I thought. You have asked me what I thought,” he explained.

Clegane gave him his inscrutable face again. “A man can be of two minds on an idea,” he grated slowly. Sansa felt blood rush to his head.

“Well I-,” he stuttered, had opened his mouth before he had even a notion of what he meant to say. “I am, that is, I should be so very grateful that you care to still consider me now, when I have lost my…,” he struggled, even as a man there were some things he could not say. “My teats,” he settled on lamely.

“You didn’t yet have teats when you caught my eye,” Clegane snorted. “It was your face. Your eyes. You really believed all that shite about love and knights. You really meant what you said. I’d never seen eyes like yours since… a long, long while. I didn’t think they were true. I couldn’t stop watching and waiting to see when you would prove yourself a little scheming liar like the rest.”

Sansa swallowed down a lump in his throat. This was not a confession he would ever have imagined to hear; hateful and almost resentful.

“But you never did, aye? So then I wanted to _force_ it from you, forge the lies out of you like a smith hammers away impurities in a sword,” Clegane’s face twisted with frustration.

Sansa started at the violent image this presented him. _I will have a sword of my own soon though, surely_. He would have to become used to it.

“And you never let me. So, there you go. You beat me, little bird. You beat me without trying.” He sat down, bending low, with his hands laced over the back of his head.

“I’ll not lie to you,” his voice intoned even deeper than usual. “I know when I’ve lost.”

It was overwhelming. Despite sitting, Sansa had to hold the shawl under him for support, his mind racing over the last few years, seeing Clegane’s actions in a new light, but testing the gaps as this puzzle pieced together. Looking for holes. Looking for lies.

Surely the Hound would never lower himself to admit such a weakness, especially not only to… to what, make Sansa more miserable when he was betrayed? He gulped down his fear. If this was a lie, there was nothing he could do about it. But if it was a truth…

“I would not like you to believe you had lost anything to me,” he knelt forward to place his hand on Sandor’s own, atop his bowed head. “Except what you gave freely. Your words and your… kindness, harsh though it was, helped me to stay strong, even when I had no other hope to rely on,” he made his own confession. It made him feel vulnerable, but also brave.

The Hound raised his head and regarded him like a wary animal, saying nothing.

“We should sleep,” Sansa suggested, and spread his shawl on the deck where Sandor had slept, then lay beside it, silently beckoning the other man to join him. He did so reluctantly, but instead of placing his cloak on the shawl to soften his berth, he laid it across Sansa, covering him completely. He thought of protesting, but the Hound’s face was stiff and cold.

Sansa was not surprised when, just as last night, Sandor’s presence beside him caused his body to react. He didn’t know why, but he could accept it. Sandor seemed very understanding about this sort of thing. Instead of fighting it, Sansa let himself indulge and revel in this tingling joy. This time, he fell asleep far sooner than he’d have liked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, these chapters keep getting bigger. Like something else, wink wink nudge... ah... I'll show myself out.


	7. Hetero? Homo? Bi? No, Sandor Identifies as Sansasexual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am powerless against this demon of chapter word count creep. I need a young septon, and an old septon. 
> 
> Also, this is the first M/M sex scene I’ve ever written. I hope that is not painfully obvious. Made especially difficult being Sansa POV so everything has to be candy sweet.

When the mercifully brief, but amazingly cramped, boat voyage finally ended, Sansa was ecstatic to have a change to stretch his legs properly. He could almost have danced and skipped around, if it wouldn’t have drawn too much attention.

He was even more ecstatic when Sandor took them to a very large inn that looked well-appointed. Baths! Sansa hadn’t bathed in more than a sennight, and if he didn’t get one before they arrived at Riverrun, he might just fling himself into the river to get clean.

Clegane bought them a meal and some wine, and paid for a room for two nights. Sansa would have preferred to travel sooner, but the future looked so bright, he could handle a little delay.

A delay for washing too, as after eating, Sandor insisted Sansa accompany him to find supplies. So Sansa rode behind the Hound as his horse meandered through town. He had never seen Maidenpool before, but it wasn’t too impressive a sight after King’s Landing. Sandor bought him a cloak to replace his shawl. It was thin and short, probably made for a woman, but there weren’t many choices without having one made. They made a few more stops, and then ended up in front of a poky building set amongst other poky buildings.

Sandor tied up his horse – Stranger – to the back wall, and when they went inside Sansa noticed it was another inn. At least, he hoped it was an inn. Some very sullen girls greeted them with dirty hands, demanding payment up front. They followed the older girl down a narrow hallway that creaked with every step each of them took, so it was practically a conversation of complaining wood. Sansa felt increasingly nervous.

“There’y’are, my lords,” the girl said, opening a door. Both Sansa and Sandor had to duck to enter the room. A single table, single chair, and single bed, though probably thousands of fleas.

“Right enough,” Sandor replied. “But bring a basin and jug of water, aye?”

The girl nodded reluctantly and closed the door.

“Why are we here?” Sansa asked, his voice as it had been in the Red Keep, in a silk dress.

“Making sure anyone who followed us to see where we lodged has the wrong inn,” he said curtly. “I’m going to unload the horse. Don’t leave, and don’t open the door for none but me or that wench.”

Sansa sat on the bed. He was relieved, but also crestfallen that a warm bath had become a jug of cold water. _Don’t be disappointed_ , he tried to rally himself. _He’s doing his best to protect you._ Still, he had to allow himself one mournful sigh at the course of events.

He waited until the water was delivered to un-braid his hair, then washed his face and arms and scrubbed his wet fingers against his scalp. It was better than nothing. Clegane returned and Sansa asked if he had a comb.

“We’ll get one tomorrow, how’s that little bird?” He rasped, following Sansa’s fingers with his eyes as they tried to gently untangle knots.

“Just wonderful,” Sansa smiled, wishing he could have one tonight. He re-braided it carefully into as tight a plait as he could manage, so it could be bound up behind his head and hidden better by his new cloak. He found Sandor was watching him when he was finished, one of his boots on the floor and the other still on his foot.

“Did you want help removing your armor?” Sansa asked, for something to say. Clegane blinked and nodded, remembering his other boot.

“I’m not sure I shall ever be able to wear such heavy armor,” Sansa mused as he undid buckles. “I will probably have to settle for leather.” Leather could be beautifully inscribed.

“Why would you wear armor?” Sandor asked. “You’re not yet a soldier. Probably shouldn’t ever be.”

“A lord’s son must learn to fight,” Sansa said, recited probably from some long-ago lesson.

“You’re too late to start. You’d never be much beyond passable.”

Sansa felt crushed, even though he didn’t truly want to fight. Hearing his prospects be so casually dismissed hurt him regardless.

“Besides,” Clegane continued, taking Sansa’s chin into his hand, though it didn’t fit as well as it once had, “I’d be shocked if your brother sent you to battle. You’re still as lovely as a lady.” He said it like an insult. Sansa wasn’t sure what to say, pouting until he realized that probably only proved Sandor’s point.

“You’ll always be seen thus,” Sandor told him, sweeping his eyes over Sansa’s face. “Mind, I don’t think that’s what women want to see, though what would I know of it? Maybe you’ll struggle to find someone to kiss you now,” he smirked, perhaps glad someone shared his lonely lot in life.

“Will you kiss me?” Sansa whispered. He hadn’t meant to say it. Hadn’t even thought it. But there it was.

The Hound’s eyes widened till they were more white than grey. But he said nothing. Sansa said nothing. In the silence, Clegane’s tongue absent-mindedly wet his ruined lip. Finally he let go of Sansa’s chin, and the two stood apart, still watching and quiet.

Sansa was the first to break, turning away and scuttling to the bed, wrapping himself up in his cloak. He heard Sandor move about, taking off the rest of his armor, putting down his sword belt, sitting in the chair, maybe just feigning being busy.

It was awkward but also peaceful, almost gentle, the silence that continued between them as Sansa tried to force himself to sleep, despite the lamp still being lit, and the bed still coldly empty. When his eyes closed, Sansa finally allowed himself to think about what he’d said. Kiss him? Why had he asked that? Had the Hound wanted to kiss him before, as a lady? Somehow Sansa thought he might have.

_But why did I say that? What if he runs away and leaves me? What if it angers him?_ This journey was meant to be the end of Sansa’s worries, but it was rapidly creating new ones.

 

* * *

 

Sansa awoke the next morning happy and warm. When he opened his eyes, Sandor’s broad shoulders filled his vision. He pressed forward, putting his face against that solid back, his nose into the strands of black hair, and inhaled contentedly. Sansa had been upset about something last night, he remembered, but if the Hound had come to bed it meant he probably wasn’t angry about it.

Sansa sat bolt upright. Clegane made a gurgling noise of protest beside him.

“W’s’sp?” He grumbled. Sansa shuffled down off the end of the bed, where Sandor’s feet were hanging far over the edge.

“Good morning,” Sansa chirped, shock and uncertainty making him instantly bright and awake. Clegane opened one eye and looked at him.

“You ready to be off already?” Sandor groaned. He didn’t look particularly well-rested.

“Only when you are, of course,” he said placatingly. A waste of time, as always. The Hound rolled onto his stomach and then pressed himself up, yawning as wide as his namesake. His tensing arms made the sleeves of his tunic stretch to breaking point. Sansa had to look away.

“Right, we’ll head off soon as you’re done whatever you need to do,” Sandor slurred, getting up and swaying to the table where the basin was full of yesterday’s washwater. He dunked his face into it.

“I don’t need to do anything,” Sansa mumbled as the Hound messily shook his wet hair about. Actually he did. He’d already determined that having a swollen manhood in the morning could be dealt with just fine in the privy, but he doubted there’d be enough privacy in this ramshackle inn. Anyway, Clegane had no way of knowing what state he was in.

_Oh sweet Mother. I pushed up close against him. Was he already awake?_

Sansa sank into moody embarrassment that didn’t lift until they were a couple hours out of the town. He’d been trying to avoid looking at Sandor, which was hard when he sat right behind the big man. The sun was rising high and his neck was hot from the bundle of tied-up hair and raised hood. It reminded him of something.

“Did you manage to find a comb?” Sansa asked, knowing they’d probably left in too much of a hurry.

“Shit,” Clegane groused. “We’ll stop off once more before Riverrun, how’s that little bird?”

“Only if it’s no trouble,” Sansa sighed. He would have liked something to do with his hands. “Would we be able to bathe before we meet my family also?”

“Why not? This is the _River_ lands, after all,” and so saying, he steered Stranger off the road and towards the winding river that ran parallel to it.

_Not quite what I meant_ , Sansa sulked. _Hot water. Scented oils. Soft towels._

What he got was a little swollen joint of the river where a bank of rocks had left a somewhat stillwater pool. He was the first parcel to be taken off the horses back by Sandor, then the rest of the saddlebags, so Stranger could relax and drink while they stopped.

Sansa took off his slippers and shook them out with dismay. They were utterly soiled. Not that he would have kept wearing slippers, he supposed. But it was still terrible to see a good pair wasted! He heard clinking metal, and looked up to see Clegane taking off his swordbelt.

_Oh, he’s going to wash too…_

Sheepishly he came and helped free him from the armor again, getting much better at pinching the taut leather out of the buckles. When Sandor was down to his clothes and began stripping, Sansa sat on a mossy rock and stared at his hands.

“Aren’t we here for you to wash?” Clegane asked him abruptly. “Or are you still a shy little bird? Are we to take turns?”

Sansa had stopped feeling so shy when men had stopped looking at him so intensely. But this was different. He wasn’t shy of being looked at, but shy of what _he_ would see.

“No, it’s fine of course. There’s no need to delay,” He was suddenly struggling to undo simple laces. It was good there were so fewer of them without a dress. He took his breeches off last, and was able to see for the first time that much of the lightly scratched lines on him were gone. Some awful dried blood remained, but most of it seemed to have flaked off into his clothes. No wonder he had been so uncomfortable.

He looked up from his self-inspection and found Sandor was regarding him just as keenly. He fought against the blush, but it was a losing battle.

“It’s… quite healed,” he squeaked. Clegane nodded with narrowed eyes.

Sansa skipped quickly to the rockpool and eased into the water. It was cold enough to make him shiver, but still very pleasant. He untied his hair from its bindings and shook it out. This was a little freedom inside a bigger freedom; a moment of joy he could savor as he’d failed to savor those in the past.

Any relaxation he’d gained vanished when the Hound slid into the water with him. He was so broad, so darkened and hardened and scarred. Sansa tried to look away, but his eyes kept falling back on him with the inevitability of a stone rolling downhill. It probably would have been less rude to just stare outright.

“Haven’t I told you long before now to go ahead and take your look, if the sight shocks you so,” Clegane grouched, not ceasing his splashy ablutions.

“I apologise, I am not shocked, it’s only that…,” _Think of something that doesn’t make you sound a fool_. “As I am now, unlearned in combat, it’s striking how very small and weak I am compared to you,” he murmured.

“That won’t change, little bird. Near every man is small and weak next to me,” his statement was more factual than boastful, but he had a bit of a smirk regardless.

Sansa huffed a little laugh. “Truly it makes me feel almost-,” he stopped himself. That was too inappropriate, even for Clegane. Men didn’t say such things to other men, did they?

“Almost what?” Sandor asked, noticing his hesitance and worrying it at it just like a real hound dog.

“I feel almost a woman again,” Sansa confessed, his eyes running along the planes of Sandor’s body.

How unfair, to only see him like this now, be close to him now, feel _want_ for him _now_.

He caught sight of the Hound’s face; dark and ominous. Sansa backed away, lowered himself further into the water.

“The gods are cruel,” he gave as a final sigh of defeat.

Sandor moved closer to him, pursuing him.

“Haven’t I always told you so, little bird? And men are cruel also,” he bit out. Sansa began to be a little scared.

“I meant nothing by it,” he peeped, lowering himself so his shoulders were only barely above the surface. His hair swirled around him like waterweeds.

“Does that matter? The gods did as they pleased with you, cruelly. Do you still pray to them, little bird?” He drew himself lower as well, so Sansa could not avoid seeing his face.

He nodded, not knowing quite what Sandor wanted him to say.

“And if I did as I pleased to you?” He asked. His hands found Sansa’s waist, where they had laid many times before as he lifted him to and from the saddle. But they were firmer now, not so gentle. Sansa trembled.

“Would you turn your pretty face away in horror?” His voice low, the sound of a blade scraped against flint.

“I don’t know what you want,” Sansa gasped. Clegane’s face changed; something fled him. He shook his head, withdrew his hands.

“No, of course you don’t,” his usual reserve was almost back in place, the armor of his mind re-buckled.

“I don’t believe you would hurt me,” Sansa declared, rising up from the water. It lapped the bottom of his ribs.

“I won’t hurt you,” the Hound echoed, promised, drew further away.

This time it was Sansa who moved closer. “It makes me happy to see you, happy to touch you,” so saying he grasped Clegane’s arm just under his shoulder. It was as rock covered in flesh. Sandor glared at him. Sansa struggled not to look away from his anger.

“You can do as you please with me,” he whispered. “I won’t turn away.” Shivers ran through him, different from the water chills. The Hound regarded him, then slowly shook his head.

“You said it yourself, you don’t know what I want,” he took Sansa’s hand and removed it from his arm. Sansa grabbed his other arm as he did.

“Show me,” he said.

“Your brother will pay well enough for your return. You don’t owe me a thing, little bird,” Sandor insisted, removing his hand again, but Sansa kept up with that dance.

“I don’t want to owe you, or repay you or thank you or appease you,” he breathed out. “I want to know you. I want to know what you want.”

The Hound’s face was still aloof, but his dark hunger had raised its ears again.

“To do to me,” Sansa pressed his lips together.

In an instant he was struck on both sides, Clegane’s palms encircling his hips again. Sansa was pulled close, finally able to touch Sandor’s skin without worrying it was pestering him.

“It was wrong to want you as my lord’s betrothed and it’s wrong to want you as a man,” Sandor murmured resentfully. “But then I remind myself that if there are gods, I’m already going to hell.” One of his hands moved down to grasp Sansa’s rear, and he pinched the handful of flesh he found mercilessly. “The only thing to bar me from doing every despicable thing to you that I’ve imagined is what you’ll allow me.”

“What have you imagined?” Sansa asked breathlessly. He would have been too afraid of the question, if Sandor hadn’t given his last few words.

With no force except the slightest nudge, Sandor pressed his lips to Sansa’s in an undemanding kiss.

Sansa’s heart melted. It was the kind of kiss he had always dreamed of, with strong arms holding him as he’d always hoped, and if he closed his eyes, he could be in the embrace of the handsome lord he’d wished for since childhood.

Sansa kept his eyes open.

They broke apart tenderly, but Sandor’s hands became less gentle, squeezing the flesh of his thighs, stroking his hand so firmly up Sansa’s back he was almost lifted off his feet for a moment. Then he _was_ lifted up, as Clegane swept him up and took him out of the river.

Sandor knelt down, keeping Sansa on his knee, to spread out his cloak over the ground, then fell onto it with Sansa beneath him. His hands were relentless in their wandering. Sansa tried to keep up, hurriedly exploring every part he’d seen and imagined since first seeing Clegane out of his dark armor.

“How much of you is still woman, to want this?” Sandor asked him in response to Sansa failing to hold back little chirps of enjoyment. “Hah! What woman would _want_ this with me? You’re something new and strange, pretty little bird,” he rumbled as low as thunder on the horizon. Sansa struggled to think on this while he was being caressed, _kneaded_ like fresh dough.

“It’s harder for a man,” he gasped, “To deny or hide what he wants,” he finished. Sandor gave him a piercing glance, and brought his face close.

“Open your mouth,” he huffed onto Sansa’s cool skin. “Let me taste that sweet tongue that gives nothing but sweet words.”

Sansa squirmed with shock and glee as his mouth was filled with the Hound’s tongue, his lips bitten by the Hound’s teeth. He might have kept it closed if he’d known what was coming, but when Sandor withdrew, Sansa’s mouth lay open and available.

Sandor rolled them onto their side, and took a hand from around Sansa’s shoulders to slip between them. “Never touched another of these before,” he said with a wry smile as he took Sansa in hand.

Sansa pursed his lips together and, deciding being bold was called for here, reached out and placed his hand on Sandor’s manhood as well. Their eyes met, grey and blue, equally wide. Sandor’s hand squeezed Sansa for an instant. He gasped, his eyes almost closing. Then, he did the same to Sandor, as best he could. It flinched against his palm, changing from firm and thick to very, very hard. Sandor was much bigger than him here, also.

“Show me what you like, and I’ll pay it back to you,” Sansa told him encouragingly.

The Hound pulled back momentarily, looking into the distance searchingly, as though pondering on the fact he was about to wank off a lad in the forest, but then “Sandor,” was cooed at him for the first time from the little bird’s mouth, and his misgivings were broken.

Their hands were a back and forth of exploration and gentle discovery. Sansa wet his fingers crudely in his mouth when he felt they were too dry to be comfortable, and then Sandor wet his fingers in Sansa’s mouth also.

It was nothing how Sansa had ever imagined a bedding to be. It was more like play, and nothing like duty, though he did desire that the Hound would _enjoy_ him.

Even though Sandor had never done such to someone else, he clearly was more practised than Sansa, who was trying very diligently to copy his every move. It was terribly difficult to focus though, while his body kept threatening to lose control of itself.

Not to mention the effort it took to restrain himself from making vulgar noises.

“Does it please you?” Sansa asked, so very much wanting to please him. Sandor considered him with veiled eyes.

“Everything to do with you pleases me,” he murmured. “How do _you_ fare, little bird?” He asked, giving a very firm squeeze to Sansa’s member, and a devilish smile.

“Ohoohh, I beg pardon, my –, you caught me unawares and I can’t… keep my voice tamed,” he blushed powerfully.

“Why would I want you tamed? You’re too tame as is. I know you had more brazenness in you as a lady than you ever dared show… there’s no cause to keep it hidden any longer,” Sandor said, and Sansa was sorely embarrassed to remember that he had been _brazen_ with the Hound, in the past, saying to him what he truly thought, and not simply what Clegane wanted to hear. 

“It’s… it’s so good,” he braved to say, voice trembling. “Why, why is it so good? If the gods meant to make me a man in all ways they failed! Your touch speaks to my body like none else have before. Even just to lie with you asleep…,” he shut his mouth by force of will, too much confessed, too much revealed.

“You think it’s been any easier for me?” Clegane let go of Sansa’s manhood, earning a disappointed gasp, but just as quickly took hold of the young man’s slender shoulders. “You look nearly no different, you smell nearly no different… if you had wanted to torture me you couldn’t have found a better path!”

It was hard, holding back tears as men must do.

“Won’t you kiss me once more?” Sansa begged. Sandor crushed him closer, one hand at his back and the other to his hips, and as their lips touched so did the carnal heat given form between them.

Sandor moved both his hands to Sansa’s rear, and held him so hard it would have hurt, if it hadn’t felt so good. He moved the both of them in a steady but gentle rhythm, Sansa wriggling against him whenever his grip allowed it, wanting it to feel even better for Sandor, for himself, for both of them. Sansa was pressed into sturdy firmness, but his own stomach and hips were soft and tender, and mustn’t feel half so nice. He wished he were a woman again, and could take Sandor’s unyielding strength inside him.

To make up for his lack, he focused on pressing kisses onto Sandor’s chest and neck, up his chin, and greeted the other man’s lowered mouth with his own.

Oh, to kiss him! It was everything that was wonderful about sleeping alongside him, everything that was good in curious glances and sinful imaginings. Sansa could have lived for days in that kiss.

The tremor that overcame Sansa as he succumbed to the euphoria their joint movement created would have had him rearing back, if Sandor hadn’t kept him pressed tight. A sticky wetness spread between them, which Clegane used to grind even harder against Sansa’s hips.

“Let me touch you,” Sansa implored him, needing to make Sandor feel as wonderful as he did. Clegane pulled back a little to make space between them, and Sansa took his member in hand, hot and sticky and twitching, and pulled at it rhythmically.

“You can go much harder than that, little bird,” Sandor told him desperately. Sansa’s second hand joined the first, working together to create both pressure and speed.

Sandor moaned in helpless pleasure as he shuddered a final time, and Sansa moaned with him, a chorus of fervour for a lover’s fulfilment.


	8. The Things We Do For Lust

As a child, Sansa had known the world was golden.

Until her father lost his head, and then she knew the world was red.

Lannister red. Blood red. The rust on swords and armor, and the dark wine that stained the lying lips of high lords and ladies.

Then Sansa had awoken a boy, and the world had become black.

The black of secrets, horrors and uncertainty – the black darkness of lying abed at night and hearing uncanny noises, not knowing what they were.

But today… today Sansa thought that maybe, the world wasn’t any of those things. Not alone. Perhaps it was many shades: Good and pitiful, terrible and precious.

Sansa didn’t _know_ anything about the world anymore. But he was curious to learn.

After their _second_ bath there seemed to settle a mutual understanding between he and Sandor. Not ashamed nor proud, just quiet, accepting and comfortable.

As they travelled on he wondered if Sandor would ever do that with him again. He hoped he would. Sansa didn’t think about the comb anymore, but was contented with leaning against Sandor’s warm back and feeling the heavy swing of the horse shifting him to and fro.

He thought of the Hound’s confession, that he had wanted Sansa as a girl. His newly reimaged concept of the man was changed once more; it hadn’t been a pure, knightly love for a fair maiden that had led him to save her.

But it also clearly hadn’t been a scheme to steal her or wed her; that was denied to any man by the time Sansa was spirited out of the Lannister’s clutches.

Could it really have been just the _memory_ of desire that led a man to give up his well-paid position with the royal family and his reputation for loyalty?

No, by the time night had fallen, Sansa had decided that despite the fact Sandor would surely deny it until he was blue in the face, what had led the Hound to risk all and return a young man to his family was _romance_.

They stopped to sleep by a bank of bramble bushes. A gap had been formed by what looked to be the over-enthusiastic attention of forest creatures, and Stranger was put straight to work continuing their campaign.

There was only cloaks and one bedroll, Sandor grumbled, throwing said bedroll to Sansa with an expression of irritation.

Of course he did.

Sansa cleared the bigger rocks from the ground and laid out the bedroll while thinking on this living poem; his tragic past with a demon brother, his blood-soaked and rage-fuelled life, and then his hopeless, secret desire for Sansa the woman, only to find himself with Sansa the man. No singer could write a stranger and more tear-beckoning tale.

He watched Sandor lay out his own cloak alongside Sansa’s bed but with a deliberate space. About the width of a scabbard, perhaps.

He thought on how in this tale, Sandor had wanted the wrong Sansa _still_ , to protect him and to relish him. Just as he had scorned the laws of gods and men with his desire to slay his kin, he had scorned them again with his devotion.

This was the type of love they wrote songs about. It was truly so fitting, Sansa decided, that when the Hound lived a song it was _horrible._

“Do you want something?” Sandor growled at him, “Or are you just staring for lack of prettier scenery?”

“The brambles _are_ a sorry sight, so cleanly picked,” Sansa noted.

“Even the animals feel the effect of winter and war,” Sandor told him, tight-lipped. “They said in Maidenpool the Riverlands have been ravaged up and down, by Westermen and Northmen alike.”

Sansa frowned. “My brother’s men would not savage the land of his mother’s kin,” he said icily.

“Your brother’s men,” Sandor leaned forward, head turned just so slightly that Sansa was more facing his terrible scars, “Are a multitude of freezing, starving sons of bitches who want to go home. Most have never spoken a word to your young wolf king, nor ever clapped eyes on his mother, and when their rations have been soiled by maggots and they come across a flourishing little hamlet selling fresh meats to the Lannisters so as to make some extra coin for winter, what do _you_ think they’re going to do, eh?”

Sansa was still, and silent.

The Hound leaned back, taking a slow pull on the remaining wineskin he had from the inn of deception.

“Why do the lords of the Riverlands fight for my brother, if this war disadvantages them on all sides?” He asked. He still wished to believe Clegane must be wrong about the Northern armies, somehow. But he had learned not to think so simply.

“Hadn’t much choice. When your mother took the Imp and put him on trial for attempting on the life of your crippled brother, lord Tywin unleashed my brother on the smallfolk here. Lord Hoster either had to defend with his men, or turn over his own daughter to placate the Lannisters, if he could get his hands on her.”

Sansa chewed on this like invisible bread.

“And a horde of Northmen coming south to do battle with the Lannisters and their allies sealed this realm into a war.” He took another, longer pull. This talk of battles did not seem to bother him nor please him.

“Is my brother doing this for me? Or for my father’s death?” Sansa had put his most desperate hope in Robb once, but now he wasn’t sure the cost was fair. Clegane’s eyes, lidded a little by strong wine, regarded him keenly.

“I’m sure your _brother_ is fighting to avenge his father and save his sister,” Sandor began, “but to the King in the North that’s only righteous posturing. If he wins against the crown, the whole of the North is removed from Southern rule; no laws or taxes or customs decreed from a Southern throne. _That’s_ what has Northern bannermen and their armies trekking through all this sodden mud. And if the Riverlands and Vale, where kin of the Starks currently sit, chose to join this Northern alliance? They’d be a match for the South, most like. Could tip the balance, and perhaps your brother’s grandsons may be king of Westeros from a Northern throne.”

He said all this without mocking. Sansa was surprised he chose not to twist the knife when making a gash so deep, but he didn’t care to think on it much.

“You know, I imagined I was important once,” Sansa confessed, because this little quiet hollow was the whole world right now, and Sandor could hardly judge another’s sins, “To my family. To the Lannisters. To the realm. If only I had been cured of that conceit much earlier.” His vision was blurred now, but it was so dark anyway that it didn’t count.

“You’re more important than most of the fools that populate this world. At least someone’ll remember you lived and put your name in a big, famous book when you die. The smallfolk that die in this war’ll be lucky to get graves,” he took another mouthful and found the wineskin empty. “Maybe they’ll remember me too, send out the good news of my death on every raven’s wings,” he chuckled morbidly, and Sansa despised it. “No, the error lords and ladies make isn’t mistaking that they’re _important_ , it’s believing that it _matters_. Blades and poison come swifter for a highborn throat than low. No-one’s going to spare you the horrors of life just because you’re noble.”

The sky was dark and empty when the Hound stopped talking, and Sansa almost wished he would continue his terribleness, just to fill up the desolate air. He sat up and shuffled his bedroll over to Sandor’s side, settling against his hip.

A harsh tang of the wine lay over the Hound’s usual scent, but Sansa could tolerate it. _Why_ he could tolerate such a man he didn’t know.

“Are you back for more then?” Sandor asked him. Did he sound just the tiniest bit uncertain?

“Do noblewomen do that thing with the oranges?” Sansa ignored his question to ask his own.

“What? Oranges?” He was honestly confused, though how he could forget such a thing was a mystery.

“You said… whores… like an orange…,” Sansa supplied, prompting Sandor to fill in the gaps.

“Oh! Hells!” Clegane slapped a hand over his face and lay down flat, pushing Sansa away a little. “I haven’t ever fucked a noble lady but I know for sure there’s some that do, and some that never would. Just like all women, I suppose. ‘Cept the ones you buy. They do what you ask.”

Sansa had been told _she_ was to do as a husband asked also. If he’d married a high lord and been asked to do that, would he have? If only his mother and septa had _told_ him more, he could have been prepared. From the sound of it, highborn men did not go to their marriage beds a novice, but women should?

_If I had not known I could refuse, would I have done whatever my husband asked?_

Sansa’s hatred had been reserved for the Lannisters for so long it was odd to experience it apart from them, but he now _seethed_ with resentment against… against all.

“Do you like it?” He demanded to know, not disguising his annoyance. Clegane squinted at him.

“Yes,” he said frankly. “Didn’t mention it though, did I? Don’t get snippy with me,” he quickly and easily surpassed Sansa in grumpiness, having had so much more practice.

“What’s it like to do it to someone?” Sansa sniffed at the subject cautiously.

“ **I wouldn’t**. **Bloody**. **Know**.” Clegane said with the certainty of the sun rising. Sansa fiddled with the fabric of Sandor’s tunic. It was very dirty by this point.

“Can I try it?” Sansa whispered with the voice practised in the silent room.

“Try it… what way?” Sandor asked slowly. Sansa glanced at his face. Sandor seemed to be chewing the inside of his cheek. _What would he say to…_

“Can I try it on you?” He asked the safer question; if Sandor’s devotion to him ended abruptly at a certain point, he would rather not know right now. Not until he was with his family.

To his surprise, the Hound still screwed up his face like he was in pain.

“I won’t lie that I don’t want it, but why would you?” He glared suspiciously, as though he knew Sansa was wondering if affection rendered a nasty thing pleasant.

“You have told me men can do what they like,” Sansa argued.

“Most of them don’t like sucking cock,” Sandor countered.

“Most? Not all?” Sansa asked and Clegane cursed.

“Barely any. Only a few, handful really,” he looked rather uncomfortable with this concept.

“Do they do that when they can’t bed a woman?” Sansa asked. He knew men’s _needs_ were talked about in very daunting terms. He could feel some of that need in himself, though he wasn’t sure… he didn’t know what he’d do if it were denied.

“No,” Clegane scoffed, “these bastards prefer a cock over a cunt, though if you asked me why I couldn’t tell you.”

Sansa’s gazed dropped to the ground. “Yes, I… that does sound strange,” he said, though apart from the idea it would be warm and soft, he couldn’t imagine anything special about the womanhood he’d once possessed.

“They lay with each other elseways too,” Sandor continued with some awkwardness. Sansa looked back up. Clegane was chewing on his inside cheek again.

“How’s that?” He asked

“You never heard of buggering, then?”

“I… have heard certain men use that word,” Sansa said with a wry smile.

“Right, right,” Sandor mumbled.

“Will you tell me of it more clearly?” Sansa asked mildly.

Clegane looked distinctly conflicted. Then he shrugged and just made to tackle the issue head-on.

“Sort of like fuckin’ a woman, but you use her ass instead of her cunt.”

Sansa gasped. “What? That’s _filthy_!”

“Everything’s filthy if you don’t bath it,” he said dismissively. Sansa still felt very outraged about this idea.

“Have _you_ ever done it?” He demanded, quite dreading the answer.

“No-one’s buggered me!” Clegane growled, but then looked up at the stars nonchalantly. “Sometimes nice to try something new though, when you’re pissed and bored and can afford the sweetest-smelling whores.”

“Is that so?” Sansa seethed. He wasn’t even sure what he was upset about anymore, but it certainly merited the many affronted and conflicted feelings he was having.

“Tch, don’t stay awake too long ruffling your feathers,” Sandor said with a yawn, and rolled away from him.

“So that is a refusal, then?” Sansa clipped his words. Sandor rolled back over, all feigning of tiredness discarded.

“What is this, huh? You want me to fuck you? ‘Cos I’ll fuck you. Do you think I was serious when I told you no-one’d kiss your lady’s face? I was being an arse and you know it. A little lord no matter how pretty or not can find plenty of girls and plenty of _cocksuckers_ alike!” He barked just like a belligerent dog.

Sansa trembled to keep himself from kicking at the Hound’s shins.

“Does being terrible make you feel so much better when you’re angry?” He lashed out with his mouth instead. The Hound scoffed.

“Yes, yes it does.” He wasn’t even sorry.

“It’s a coward’s way to fight,” Sansa snapped.

The Hound was over him in an instant, an elbow on each side of Sansa’s head.

“ _You_ have nothing to teach _me_ about bravery, little bird,” he snarled.

“Don’t I?” Sansa returned furiously. “How many times have you rejected the words spat at you by someone thrice your size, someone who could kill you without trying?”

Sandor reared up, just his palms on the ground now. “You little…,” he trembled with his fury, Sansa could tell even in the dark.

“If I were still a woman would it anger you so much to speak of lying with me?” Sansa’s own anger was gone; a quiet voice that sought not victory but answers.

Sandor let out his breath in a long, pained gasp, lowering back down to brush Sansa’s chest with his own.

“No.” He said finally, and Sansa turned his head aside. So much for songs and poems and gods-defying love.

“How could it not? I’ve always held that fucking a man was vile, and now I want to anyway. Hells, I’ve been… twisted around by your…,” he struggled, the tension vibrating through him into Sansa from even their little contact.

“I’m not angry at you, little bird,” he gasped in the end, lowered his head beside Sansa’s own. Sansa clutched at his hair, trying to be gentle.

“I’m drawn to you just the same, without understanding why,” Sansa consoled him. “I don’t know if I’ll like it but… when I think of women… women don’t make me feel the way you do.” Maybe some woman would, some day.

“I want to try, just to see… maybe neither of us will like it, and then it won’t cause us to fret anymore,” he suggested. Clegane laughed darkly.

“Oh, just to see if you like it, aye? Alright, I’ll humor your nonsense fancies if it’ll suit me fine,” he mocked. Sansa’s spine and hips were filled with anticipation. He could feel himself swelling bigger.

“So… we’ll…,” he dawdled, wanting Sandor to lead him.

“Let’s… not just now, little bird, it’s not a wise idea…,” Clegane pushed his nose into Sansa’s hair as he huffed into his ear.

“What are you worried about? That you’ll put a babe in me?” Sansa tittered to cover his own nerves. Sandor gave a rumble that passed from his chest into Sansa’s.

“Well, I may as well try,” he growled. Sansa blushed like a sunrise.

“But buggering’s not something you can just _do_ , as I understand it. You need something wet and oily, whorehouses keep that sort of thing on hand…,” he trailed off. Sansa nodded obediently once more, but had to put effort into tamping down his previous excitement. His neck felt hot behind the ears.

“Will you kiss me?” He whispered. He shouldn’t have had to ask. Sandor’s head rose and he passed his face over Sansa’s silently, brushing his mouth against it from ear to lips. His kiss was unmistakeably restrained. Sansa wanted to kiss him all over in return, even his scars, but it wasn’t right to do it in the darkness, not the first time.

They parted just as gently, and Sandor lay back down, but scooped Sansa up towards him, so they faced the same direction, but touched front and back. Sansa was held. Protected. Cherished.

He should be glad they couldn’t lie together tonight. It was so perverse. But it couldn’t… well, he was no lady anymore, had no maidenhead to preserve. Maybe a little perversion would remind his body that it should want a woman, and he would not find so dreary the thought of having a wife.


	9. Sandor's Idea of Glamping Is An Extra Blanket

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A houseguest with ADHD has kept me hostage, but finally I am free to write once more without incessant distractions! This chapter was a bit of a roadblock too, with too many different things happening, so I eventually cut it in twain. Wait, why did I care so much about ensuring the quality of such a nonsense story?! How conceited!

Despite Clegane’s dim view of Sansa’s prospects as a soldier, they had agreed that Sansa would pose as his squire until they reached Riverrun, and Sandor had begun to truly teach Sansa in that regard.

Most of what he learnt was the proper names for things, and lessons on how to take care of equipment. Sansa had already known that a knight must cherish his armor and weapons and be dedicated to caring for them, but he had never been particularly interested in learning what that entailed. Or just how long it took.

He wondered if Sandor would have given him things to clean and fix if Sansa had still been a lady when they escaped. It was curious to reflect on how useless he would have been, and how proper it would have been to be so useless.

And something else tickled Sansa’s mind from these tasks of a squire, which he was sure Sandor did not intend.

Sansa could become a knight.

It was a thought that would have once been so, so sweet, like honey on soft bread, but its sweetness had turned to rot. He knew very well what Sandor would think of this notion. Still, he could not deny there was some lingering scent that appealed to him.

 _Ser_ Sansa. Ser Sansa the… Fair? No, too petty. Ser Sansa the Gentle? That was a nice title. Ser Sansa the Sweet!

“What are you tittering at?” Sandor’s voice scraped into Sansa’s musings.

“Oh, nothing really, only a little foolishness,” Sansa said bashfully, hoping his coyness would deflect Sandor’s attention.

It worked. Sandor immediately turned back to the road ahead as if they had never spoken.

The Hound was a strange and mysterious puzzle to Sansa. He was willing to allow for warm hands and slick fingers finding their way past laces and making the cold nights more bearable. More than willing; he had pulled Sansa to him without preamble more than once. But as to Sansa’s wishes for sweet looks, warm kisses, and gentle touches during the daytime, Sandor was completely unresponsive.

Even those kisses allowed in the dark, Sansa had to ask for. _Ask!_ Who was the Hound here and who the quarry?  

All in all, it was quite suspicious that Sandor had now decided everything should be kept in the best repair, and it should be Sansa that did it. Perhaps it truly _was_ important to unpack, brush out and repack the saddlebags every day. But Sansa doubted it.

And the obscene things they had spoken of that first night after becoming lovers, had never been mentioned again. Sansa wanted to ask more, he truly did, but shyness and uncertainty and a not insignificant measure of fear kept him silent. What kept the Hound silent on the matter was anyone’s guess.

Sansa was a little disappointed to realise Sandor’s curious behaviors were probably all rooted in shame of what they had been doing; trying to hide as much of it as could be. He couldn’t deny he was a little ashamed at times as well, when he got himself riled up again thinking of what they had done the night before, and he knew this could never be considered right.

In the darkness, no-one was witness to what they did but the gods, and Sandor did not believe they watched at all.

So the kisses, why, why, in that night he thought concealed every sin did Sandor not kiss him of his own accord? It troubled Sansa more than it should. The Hound had said such potent things to him, about being defeated, being tortured with want, and Sansa had been convinced it was love that drove Sandor to save him.

But love was well-anointed with kisses. This, Sansa knew implicitly.

The ponderings were wiped from his mind when they rounded a corner and were able to see, through the still somewhat dense trees, the great structure of Riverrun. Easily within a day’s journey. Sansa’s heart soared like a freed bird to be so close to his family. He watched it devotedly until it was hidden by the forest once more.

Clegane must have noticed Sansa’s keen observance, as he offered a gentle but still growly, “Only one more night’s sleep and you’ll see your mother.”

Sansa turned and gave him a look he hoped would inspire pity in even the Hound’s cold heart.

“Can we not press on and be there tonight? Even if we must wait until everyone wakes on the morrow…,” he asked plaintively. Clegane shook his lanky hair.

“You’d fall down from exhaustion as soon as you got off the horse, and maybe that’d be fine if you were as your family last saw you, but…” he shrugged. Sansa sighed. Any concept of the serenity or beauty to be found sleeping under the stars had long since been wrung out of him. At least Clegane had gone out of his way several times to buy shelter in the pens of those crofters fortunate enough to own animals. Though they were sometimes turned away, and even when they weren’t the pens always _stank_ but at least they were warm. Sansa did feel a bit sad for the goats that had to spend the night tied outside.

At least now Sansa would never again look forward eagerly to rolling around in straw still warm from Bessa the sheep’s occupation of it.

Sandor had also kept his word and bought Sansa a wooden comb from one of the families they stayed with. It was rough and unpolished, and he would be able to replace it with a fine one of bone or metal on the morrow, but… perhaps it didn’t need to be discarded so quickly as animal-scented nights.

It was only early afternoon when Clegane called a halt for the day. He had found an ideal little gully, where perhaps once the river had flowed before shifting several paces down, leaving a raised bank thickly guarded by trees and looking over a small dry patch of grasses.

“Should we not pitch camp closer to the town? As close as we can?” Sansa asked, going about his by now well-practised chores, but slower than he should.

“Doubt we’ll find a place so concealed as this any nearer,” Sandor huffed disinterestedly. Sansa had highly appreciated the trouble Sandor took to keep them hidden and safe at the beginning of their journey, and even further on, when it seemed far less necessary to avoid large settlements and he had to seriously question if the trauma of waking up to find a beetle on his face was worse than the possibility of being pursued by the king’s men. At this point, with his uncle’s castle in sight though, it just seemed like bizarre self-punishment.

Sansa was going to allow this though. Sansa was going to pick his battles. He had another campaign of more importance, and was not going to wear the Hound’s famously thin temper down on any other frivolous matters.

He kept to his duties, one eye on Sandor at all times, watching the man be lulled into false security by the comfort of repetitive labor. He had to wait until there were no further tasks that Sandor could claim he must attend to before bothering with Sansa’s “foolish concerns”, which was code for anything Sandor found too difficult to talk about.

When the horses were brushed, the bedrolls suitably unrolled, the food unpacked and Sandor sitting on the pile of their saddlebags contentedly eating said food, Sansa saw the opportunity.

“Why do you never ask to kiss me?” He asked, deciding to eschew subtlety. While tact was a key that could open many doors, there was no point using anything but a battering ram against the Hound.

It showed immediate results. The Hound’s head snapped towards Sansa, his eyes round as coins, as were his cheeks full of bread. Then he rallied his defences, and his expression cooled to impressively-feigned disdain.

“Ask? Why should I?” Clegane shrugged offhandedly. Sansa’s simmering annoyance rushed to a boil, before Sandor continued. “You ask for it enough, don’t you? If I made to kiss you and you didn’t want it, would you be bold enough to say so? From every step you took in the Red Keep it seems you care too much for pleasing people, and not enough for pleasing yourself.”

“I will say it plainly, if I don’t wish for your attentions,” Sansa insisted, though he wasn’t sure he would ever need to. “Are you saying you have no interest in such things?” His voice resembled a blade running along a whetstone, sharpening for future use.

“Surely I have enough of my own that you don’t need to stuff my mouth with mean words, now, do you little bird?” Clegane rebuked him. “It’s simply that you have us do it plenty, so why care for the few times I want more?”

Sansa tried to decide if that answer was acceptable. At least he knew Sandor _did_ want his kisses. He still had no satisfaction though, and quickly understood why. “You say there’s no need to acquiesce to _your_ wants. But it’s not only you who wants it. To be left untouched, until I plead, makes me feel a beggar at the door of a tight-fisted lord.”

The Hound slapped his thigh with a sharp crack, causing Sansa to jump, but immediately followed it with a harsh and deep laughter.

“I’ve never heard it better put: the place appointed for every man, as far as I’ve seen it. Men always want more than a woman is willing to give. It’s probably best you get used to begging,” he huffed in his mirth.

Sansa twisted up his face in anticipation of Sandor realizing what he had just said.

“Bug… fu… by the gods,” was the decidedly unsatisfying outcome. Though, he _was_ glaring at Sansa as if he had somehow contrived all of the past few minutes entirely to trick Sandor into saying something foolish.

“If everyone shares with those in need, then there would be no beggars,” Sansa declared diplomatically, and with quite vivid memories of half-wasted men and women screaming for bread and blood during the riot.

Clegane mumbled something that Sansa could not hear, but it wasn’t very likely that it was insightful nor important.

“There is a concern that only recently has placed me under its weight, and perhaps a load I must share,” Sansa sighed, turning to vital matters. “How are we to gain audience with my brother when… well, we cannot tell anyone the truth before my brother or mother sees me, or we would be laughed away, if not imprisoned.” Sansa had not thought of it before, somehow pictured having the right to walk into the Keep, into the great hall of Riverrun as he had always been able to in Winterfell.

“Bugger me if I know,” Sandor scratched out. “But I know one thing for sure. Anyone gets sight of my face and they’ll want to cut off and present it to their new king.”

“I will speak for you!” Sansa exclaimed, and leapt up off his bedroll and onto Sandor’s lap.

“And exactly as you said, no-one will believe you to be the king’s sister until Robb declares it himself. If you attempted to defend me, your brother would be identifying you as a very beautiful corpse,” Clegane snapped, his hands going to Sansa’s hips automatically.

Despite the tense subject and worry he was feeling, Sansa couldn’t help but preen a little internally at Sandor’s inadvertent compliment.

“It’s too risky for my liking,” Clegane mused, “But you will have to go to your brother alone. My presence would only cause you trouble. Tell them you have _news_ of the king’s sister, let them see you have no weapons, and that will be your best chance to talk with someone who will know you by sight.”

Sansa considered this. It was not too terrible a notion, his identity being all but hidden except from those he wanted to know it, and he could do it all in a day if he was swift.

“I will try. If they will not see me I will return the next day, with luck. If they do take me in, I will return for you only when I am sure they mean you no harm,” he promised, turning his new comb to Sandor’s hair and carefully brushing it out a portion at a time. It was entirely unkempt. Clegane chuckled.

“I suppose someone will find my frozen corpse here come next spring.”

“Don’t be morbid,” Sansa scolded him, then gave him a kiss on his scarred brow to soften the blow.

“Your brother would be a fool not to want my sword for his cause,” Sandor gruffed, “But being a fool seems to be a requirement to be a king. You would be wiser to find a way to send word that I’m not welcome here.”

“But where would you go if you were turned away?” Sansa asked plaintively. “And, you cannot believe I would simply give up on turning my brother’s heart towards you.”

Clegane did not look at him, but down to his hands on Sansa’s waist.

“A sword finds work in every land,” he bit out, and then was silent.

Sansa ceased his work with the comb and gently took Sandor’s face in his hands, tilting it up so he could not avoid to look at Sansa without being childish.

“You are not a sword,” Sansa said solemnly, when their eyes met.

“A sword is all I’ve ever been,” Clegane replied to him with just as much graveness. “What do you think happens to men like me when we can no longer fight?”

Sansa searched Sandor’s eyes. Searched his own memories. “You teach to others what you know from your long years of experience,” he said more confidently than he believed.

“Not men like your father’s troops,” Clegane scoffed. “Who go to battle only when banners are called. Men like me. Like my brother. Who put to sword whoever we are told, and never care why.”

Sansa swallowed uncomfortably. “You are _not_ like your brother,” he whispered.

“Only because I don’t enjoy it,” was the bitter reply.

“Then you needn’t do it any longer,” Sansa insisted. “My brother will never ask atrocities of you.”

“It’s been so long since I’ve had faith like yours, I can’t even remember it for true,” Sandor mused.

Sick of words, Sansa pressed a hard kiss to the Hound’s cruel lips. As with everything in Sandor’s life, he rose to the challenge and surpassed expectations. He could not hate kissing, or else he was the finest mummer Sansa had ever seen.


	10. Now You're A Man, Your Life Can Begin

Sansa awoke in the earliest dawn, shivering from dew despite the blanket laying over him, and the warm body laying behind him. Usually he did not like to rise while the world was still dark and wet, only birds setting to the work of the day.

But this morning was different. That was the last sleep he had to endure separated from this family, and as a result he didn’t feel even the slightest ache or twinge of fatigue.

Unfortunately his new restlessness could not triumph against the chill. Maybe if he had been in bed alone, only cosy blankets to give up… but the Hound was very, very warm. And pressed entirely against Sansa as he was - his chin resting on auburn tresses and his shins entwined with slender ankles - he was entirely too delicious to part from just now. It might be days before they were together again, after all. And…

Sansa sucked in a breath of cold morning air.

This was probably the last time he would fall asleep sticky and salty in contentment, and wake up with a powerful, lean body rumbling beside him.

He certainly wouldn’t miss that snoring though.

Best not to dwell on it. Robb would hopefully let the Hound stay on as Sansa’s shield, and Sandor would hopefully agree. This wasn’t a true farewell… only he had to convince Clegane to believe that, and wait patiently for Sansa’s return.

It occurred to Sansa that if Robb refused to see the Hound… and if Clegane did mean to leave after some time without word… that he would not even be compensated the generous coin he had spent getting Sansa away, let alone rewarded for returning him.

Did he trust Sansa not to forget him, despite his glum claims to the opposite, or…?

The Hound chose this moment to tear apart the tranquillity of the morning by resuming his horrible snores. Instead of giving him a gentle nudge, Sansa shoved an elbow into his ribs, for not displaying his tender proffering of romance back when Sansa could have welcomed it.

The blow made Sandor jolt awake, and immediately start coughing loudly and wetly into Sansa’s hair.

Could have considered welcoming it, in any case.

Clegane groaned a curse and rolled over, tugging away the warm part of the blanket, leaving Sansa exposed to the chill. Irate, he wiggled out of the bedroll and stomped off to make water far enough away that he wouldn’t be heard.

By the time he returned, the Hound was awake, and had just finished letting out _his_ bladder, not five yards from where he’d rolled out of bed.

Sansa pursed his lips. Honestly, being a man didn’t mean you had to be _vulgar_. The fact so many were when they thought they could get away with it spoke to Sansa more about choice than any innate nature of the male creature. Not much use making an issue of it with _this_ one, but if Sansa ever had sons – if he, if he could have sons, then…

His indignation bled out, returning him to the melancholy mood of wondering if he’d ever see Sandor again. Even with all his horribleness.

“Eager to be off, then?” Clegane yawned, scratching at his stubbly beard. Sansa didn’t have even the shadow of a beard. He wondered if he ever would.

“Nothing can be gained by delay,” he declared, beginning to gather up the camp.

“Don’t take more than you need,” Sandor told him, breaking Sansa out of his unthinking routine. _Of course, Sandor will keep camp here_. He saddled his horse without any burdens; a speckled creature Sansa called _gentle_ and the Hound called _too bloody stupid to even pull a plough straight_. It had grazed overnight, so Sansa decided not to feed it a treat this morning, so as to conserve Sandor’s supplies. The horse attempted to eat his hair.

When he was more or less ready to leave Sandor had made a little fire, just a tiny thing, and was sitting atop everything he and Sansa currently owned, wrapping a knife up in leather strips.

“You’ll only end up cutting yourself if you try to use it, and you should hand it over as soon as you’re asked, so I don’t know why I should give you a blade,” he grumbled. Sansa hadn’t thought they’d even mentioned a weapon before.

“Make me too fucking edgy to send you off without one though,” he finished with irritation. Sansa came over and sat with him, smiling fondly.

“You’re right, I don’t know how to use one. Will you teach me to use a sword, when we’re with my brother’s army?” He asked, bending down to peek at Sandor’s lowered face. Slate eyes flicked over to him only for a moment.

“If someone _must_ teach you, it may as well be me,” he conceded. Finished tying off the makeshift sheath, he tugged Sansa forward by his belt, knotting the loose ends to it. He would need several minutes to untie it all, probably, but he did feel suddenly more powerful having a blade at his side.

His smile to Sandor changed from kind to impish.

“I have been considering, and, if we must be parted for now, I wish to leave neither you nor myself uncertain of… how it is between us,” he wrung his hands together nervously, feeling them warm and clammy. “That is, if you will allow it,” he looked up through his lashes to see the verdict.

“Allow what?” The Hound drawled slowly, but alertly, his now-empty fingers twitching. Sansa shifted even closer, flush against him. Clegane stiffened. He was probably still uncomfortable with this sort of thing in the daylight. Sansa put his face gently against the leathery scars to whisper in his ear.

“I remembered what you said about, well, that it can feel good when a woman puts her… her mouth on you,” he muttered conspiratorially. Sandor’s hand found the back of Sansa’s tunic and gripped it tightly. It was shameful of him but he was glad he didn’t face Sandor directly right now, or he mightn’t have had the nerve to speak.

“I think I’m… ready to try it. To… do it on you,” he stuttered, “Only if you want me to,” he insisted. Women’s mouths and men’s mouths were the same as far as Sansa knew, but he couldn’t be upset if Sandor found this too distasteful, he couldn’t.

“Bloody hells,” Sandor huffed into Sansa’s own ear, a long, drawn-out exclamation of blasphemy. The hand on his back dropped lower, squeezed flesh instead of cloth. Sansa gave the little cry he had learned always made Sandor’s member twitch. A movement against his hip proved him right, but no answer came.

No reply was also no refusal, and as Sansa was no longer a stranger to finding what he was looking for, he filled his own palm with the warm and partly firm encouragement past Sandor’s laces. He squeezed and pulled it hesitantly, nervous with excitement.

“So… did you want it?” Sansa asked, pressing his hot cheek to Sandor’s not much cooler neck. “Or is it too-“

“I’ll have whatever you’re offering,” was the long-awaited response, a deep thrumming from the back of Clegane’s throat, “But… mind your teeth, little bird,” he rasped, biting his own lip in either indecision or worry. Sansa nodded his understanding and lowered his head to join his hands, beginning to explore gently with his tongue, wetting Sandor directly for the first time.

He had touched this much before but never… so close, and without the cover of darkness. _It’s not so unpleasant_ , Sansa decided. Strange and undignified, but so degenerate it somehow surpassed disgust and made a round trip back to delightful. He tried to imagine what he himself would find thrilling, if it was done to him.

He had never called it by the crude names the Hound did, but thinking about that now brought a warmth to his tummy, and a throb of delight to his own… his own cock. He began to lick and mouth it in earnest, not sure whether to stiffen his tongue and mimic the movements his fingers would make, or let it sweep softly over as broad an area as possible. His indecision led to him trying to do both at once.

A chuckle from above told him the effect was probably less than spectacular. He sat up again and made the effort to look the Hound right in the eye, despite how embarrassed he was.

“What do you find most agreeable? Will you tell me?” He asked, keeping his fingers moving over the slippery flesh.

“Try and take it into your mouth,” Sandor said, rubbing the good side of his face against Sansa’s. “Only so much as you can manage.”

“How much can a woman usually manage?” Sansa asked, eyeing the sizeable object in his hand and calculating his dubious odds.

“Well, if a woman’s made cocksucking her vocation you expect her to manage most all of it,” Clegane laughed. “But no-one would expect that of a sweet thing like you,” he smiled lopsidedly, but Sansa couldn’t help but feel a little vexed. If a thing was to be done, it should be done well.

With that in mind he gasped in a full breath and took a generous mouthful.

It earned him immediate praise, although of the vulgar variety. He would have smiled but his lips had no room to move. Very gently, Sandor moved his member in and out of Sansa’s mouth, and it made the young man mindful of just how delicate a situation they were in; how vulnerable this made the both of them.

He determined to take over the task, and began to draw the cock in and out of his mouth, squeezing with the hand that held it steady. To sustain the speed and intensity the Hound liked was going to be difficult like this, but the challenge spurred him on. He started moving swiftly and solidly, his head impacting Clegane’s stomach, but probably his head was the softer of the two.

Suddenly Sandor’s cock was pulled right out of his mouth and there was an almighty thud. The Hound had lost his balance and fallen, laying twisted to one side, looking as flustered as he probably could.

“Bloody hells, I… never had someone go at me with such enthusiasm,” he huffed. Sansa leaned over the saddlebags and grasped him around the waist.

“Are you alright?” He fluttered his hands over Clegane’s hips and chest.

“Aye, I’m… aye,” he grimaced.

“Can we… can I keep going?” Sansa asked hopefully. Sandor’s expression from the ground was part bewildered, part relieved.

“Aye,” he gasped, then, “Bloody hells,” as Sansa immediately swallowed his cock back into his mouth and pulled himself down it as far as his throat would allow, which was more than before.

“It’s easier this way,” he broke to inform Sandor.

“Aye…,” was the weak reply.

Sansa used one hand to hold himself aloft, the other grasped Sandor’s member and tugged it forward, his hand and mouth meeting with each motion. He hoped it felt as good as he imagined it. Maybe Sandor would… maybe…

“Uuhhn, in the same direction, not against,” Sandor groaned. Sansa nodded against his stomach and changed his movements, chasing his hand down the shaft with his mouth, and then reversing the pursuit. He tried to keep his grip firm and the pace fast, though between that and keeping his teeth away, he was too preoccupied to consider new ideas.

It quickly lead to an ache in his jaw, so he removed his mouth for a moment and just continued with his hands as he was accustomed, leaving little licks in his fingers’ wake.

“Do you like it?” he huffed between licks, hoping for approval.

“Gods you could be biting me with those pearly little teeth of yours and I’d like it,” Sandor confessed pathetically. “Just don’t stop.”

Sansa took him back into his mouth, humming in satisfaction. He thought about oranges, about sweet lemons, and tried sucking against it, but it was quite tricky, as well as resulting in horrible slurping noises. Sandor gave him a groan of wholehearted approval regardless.

“Better… keep your mouth clear…,” Sandor panted, “Not inside,” he gargled. Sansa understood, continuing with his hands alone as he was well practiced, and when the Hound came undone and lifted his hips off the ground so forcefully Sansa was pushed up with them, the wet stickiness of his seed was caught in the palms of Sansa’s intertwined hands.

It was, as usual, a messy but tangible proof of delight, and Sansa wondered at it, that when _inside_ a woman it became a child. This… milky ichor of human passion. It must not be poisonous, what with its intended purpose.

“Is it bad, to let it fall into my mouth?” Sansa asked Sandor after he had some time to catch his breath.

“Hrnn, don’t taste very nice, from what I’m told,” he mumbled without rancour. This was a good time to talk to him; he was always in an agreeable mood after being appeased, as Sansa well understood why.

Curious but cautious, Sansa raised his fingers to his mouth and made a little lick of one with his tongue.

“Ah, mmm, hrmm, that is, eh, a little strange,” he coughed, not sure if it was truly _so_ awful, but it could not be called pleasant either. Well, it wasn’t meant to be eaten, was it?

He found the Hound looking at him with a blend of exasperation and longing; a dog watching a sausage being eaten and knowing he wasn’t going to get a single scrap.

Sansa shook his head in consternation. No matter how much he gave Sandor, the man seemed set on believing each additional boon was the new line between them, never to be crossed.

Sansa had hoped doing this would assure the Hound that he didn’t intend to walk away from him but… perhaps the burned man had lost the ability to hope or believe in things he hadn’t seen for himself.

After they had cleaned up he gave one final kiss and said goodbye, promising to return shortly; all without much reaction from Clegane, either good or ill.

Sansa set off alone, solely responsible for his own destiny for the first time in his life, wondering if a man’s faith could ever be reclaimed from a fathomless depth.

 

 


	11. A Stranger In One’s Homeland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is so very dull. Nobody gets their dick out at all. Oh wait, no, I tell a lie, but it’s entirely without fun. However, the muse of plot adherence must be paid her due.

Although he knew to expect it, it was still a shock to Sansa just how rude people had become to him.

There was no attempt at the courtesy or regard that was due even the most baseborn woman. No, he only got shifty looks and demanding words, although a few people did peer at him with no small confusion upon first sight.

As soon as he told the guards at the castle gate that he had news for the northern king, he was subjected to intense questions and belligerent mocking. The Hound had warned him they would try to get the information out of him without granting him entry, so he stayed firm and insisted his words were for the king alone, or he would otherwise leave.

Then they threatened to lock him up, but he was resolute. In truth it troubled him deeply to think of many days wasted; how Sandor would interpret such a delay.

But he was a Stark of Winterfell, and could not be deterred by discourtesies and threats. He said only again and again, “I have news for the king of his sister, for his ears alone.”

Eventually they capitulated, and escorted him inside; a guard of four burly men for a single boy, who had already had his blade confiscated. He trembled the entire time, though whether from fear or anticipation he wasn’t sure.

Then he was told he had to wait. Of course, a king had no priority to see unannounced strangers, no matter what they claimed to have or be.

It was another reminder to him that though he still had the same eyes, they were seeing the world far differently than they had as a woman.

A man came, saying he was the lord’s steward, and asking what Sansa had to tell.

Sansa stayed firm. What he had to say, he would only speak to the king.

When the man’s attempts to convince or threaten failed, he frowned ominously, and left Sansa alone once more.

When he was finally called upon, _finally_ , pushed and pulled to the hum of the central keep, to a well-guarded room, Sansa had never been so happy to see so many armed men, and know what it meant.

He had words he intended to say, had memorized and repeated them endlessly while riding to the castle. But when he saw auburn hair, and those blue eyes rose to find him, he was lost.

“Robb!” He sobbed, shaking with the effort of not leaping to him.

“Sansa?” Was the shocked, tremulous, almost frightened reply.

“Oh, Robb,” Sansa wept, uncaring. Right now he was a girl again, who wanted to hold and be held by her big brother.

As if reading his mind, Robb darted round the table and scooped him up, crushed him beautifully.

“How? How? Why are you… where is Arya?” Robb asked frantic questions, alternating between searching his face as though it held the answers, and bringing them together in warm hugs once again.

“I don’t know where Arya is, I don’t know… I have so much to tell you, Robb, and mother. Where is mother?” He wanted to see mother today, right now. He didn’t want to be made to wait again, not one instant.

“She is in the lord’s rooms… Oh, she’ll be… overjoyed! Did the Lannisters send you back, Sansa?” He was not tall enough any longer to press his cheek easily to the crown of Sansa’s head, but he pressed to his forehead, and it was just as good.

“Your grace,” a man interjected suddenly, one of those at the table Robb had sat at. “Are you meaning to say this… lad is your… sister, Sansa?”

Sansa did not know him. Not a northern lord then, or not one he was familiar with. Robb had acquired many new lords, he supposed.

“Of course this is my sister! No matter how disguised, I could never mistake her!” He turned back to Sansa, holding him by the shoulders now, a broad grin on his face but a little twist to his eyebrows. “You still look… so much like mother,” he said warmly.

Sansa wondered if he truly did. If he could see his mother again, he would know.

“My apologies, your grace,” one of the men who had brought Sansa said, his voice so different when laden with courtesies as to be almost unrecognisable as the crude one he spoke to Sansa with. “She did not tell us who she was, only that she had news for you, and we had no idea-,” he trailed off, clearly rueing the chance to gain the favour with Robb that bringing his sister to him would grant.

“Your men did right by you,” Sansa declared boldly. “They were cautious and prudent in who they would bring to you. The care they took to safeguard your person and your time were admirable.” Although one arm still ached from a grip too tight, he gave the men a nod of his head to indicate his forgiveness.

“Still so proper and so sweet,” Robb smiled, “I missed you so. Come, we need to go to mother-”

“Perhaps it would be better to call the Lady Catelyn here, your grace,” the questioning man suggested. “Too much fuss and activity could trouble Lord Hoster.”

“Yes, you’re probably right, thank you,” Robb took the interruption with grace Joffrey would never possess even in his best-behaved moods. “Please fetch my mother,” he asked the guards, who bowed and murmured assurances and were clearly glad to be dismissed.

“Even making the best time, it is surely too soon for your lady mother’s… trade with the Lannisters to have been completed,” another man, one vaguely familiar to Sansa, said in a concerned tone.

“A trade?” Sansa asked, eyes widening in shock. His family had finally made to ransom him, and he had escaped just before? How terrible, the irony of fate.

“Yes, she… it’s a matter for another time, if you did not come here due to that,” Robb assured him.

Sansa wondered if this was the time to mention the Hound. If it should be to his family alone, where he could more delicately explain matters, or here with others present, making word quickly circulate and unable to be hidden. He decided to be daring, as he more often had recently.

“Sandor Clegane helped me escape the Lannisters,” he said firmly, but without much emotion. “Many strange and terrible things have happened since Joffery was crowned king, and even his family’s most loyal retainers cannot ignore his crimes.” True, but not the whole truth. It would do.

“Clegane?” Robb snapped, changing face in an instant. “The same whose brother is roaming Lord Tully’s lands, killing and raping?”

Sansa blanched, but he had chosen this public revelation, and so he must withstand it all.

“Yes, that Sandor Clegane. But he is nothing like his brother, I assure you,” Sansa was acutely aware he was not familiar with all of Sandor’s past. He hoped no-one present was either, in case it made his case even more difficult to argue.

“That’s not as I’ve heard it,” someone murmured, and Sansa gulped troubled breath.

“Where is Clegane now, then?” Robb asked tersely, a look of determination and disdain on his face.

“He did not accompany me to the castle. I… am aware as you of his and his family’s reputation. I did not want to risk his life so soon after he saved my own,” Sansa explained, hoping his assurance would count for much.

“He left you to find your way alone? Unescorted?” Robb seethed, flushing a little red. Sansa blinked with the realization of how inappropriate it all must seem, if he were a woman still. He hadn’t even considered it, nor had Sandor mentioned it… he was no longer only a woman then, in Clegane’s eyes. It stung him a little.

“Robb, I have… a terrible account to tell you,” he sighed. “I hope you believe it all. Some things are only for you and mother to hear,” he bowed his head. Robb took the cue to address the rest of the room.

“I wish to resume our discussion once I have heard all my sister has to say. Hopefully she can tell us more of what is transpiring in the Lannister court.”

“Word is your sister Sansa openly claimed you and Lord Eddard Stark as traitors,” the man who seemed most suspicious of Sansa’s arrival said. “Should we not consider the possibility this is itself a Lannister plot?” He asked calmly.

Sansa closed his eyes in shame, but would not bow his head to this man.

“I have said and claimed a _thousand_ things in King’s Landing,” he bit out, trying not to display his anger. “I said whatever the Lannisters wanted me to say, first to try and save my father’s life, and then my own,” his voice broke apart a little. “Or at least spare myself a beating from the king’s white-cloaked knights!”

“Sansa!” Robb gasped, hounds and traitors momentarily forgotten. “Do you mean…,”

“Please, spare me from telling you all in front of others, at least at first,” he begged. “Shame was my constant raiment in the Southern court. Must I so quickly take it up again here?”

Robb came and pulled him close again, mercifully silent. His prior audience began to shuffle and make their way to the door.

But before anyone reached it, a sharp noise announced someone was knocking from the other side. Could it be?

“Enter,” Robb called, and the door opened, and Sansa saw the face he had been most desperately longing for.

Another round of delighted cries, another familiar yet strangely different embrace, and Sansa was finally home. He would never leave again.

“Mother, mother,” he wasn’t sure if he was speaking the words, or merely thinking them. His mother was talking to him, something he couldn’t understand, Robb was talking, the other men were talking.

He almost missed seeing one of them whisper into Robb’s ear as he departed, but he didn’t truly care. When they were finally alone, they sat together, each holding one of the other’s hands, consoling and comforting each other.

For all their smiles, Sansa was unable to miss the faint gloss of confusion in his mother and brother’s eyes sometimes, as they glanced over his man’s riding attire, and how snugly it fit him.

After being assured none of them was going to disappear in a puff of smoke, Sansa finally calmed enough to regain his sense.

And then he told them everything.

Being lied to and lying to himself. Father’s arrest. Jeyne being taken away and Arya never returning. Thinking he could do something, change something, still believing everything would be alright.

And then death and blood and pain. Learning to fear his betrothed and learning that almost any man would commit a sin when asked by a cruel and evil king. He spoke of leers and being stripped, laughter and being beaten.

Then he had prayed, and the gods had answered him; but as _they_ wished to, not as he wished.

How unwittingly this had led to his escape – the horrors inflicted on him becoming more frightening, enough to spur the only meagre ally he had into action. And he tried to speak of Clegane as one would a friend; kindly, sweetly, without telling the man’s secrets nor Sansa’s own.

His mother cried. He cried. He needed so very much water again and again as his throat became parched from too much talking, and then he shed that water out again in tears almost immediately. Robb seemed more indignant than sad.

However they reacted to his tale, neither wanted to believe the finality of it. Both protested that Sansa could not be anything but a daughter, a sister, a lady. He had known it would have to be proven, but it was so difficult a thing. He almost wished to lie and agree, and live as a woman once more.

Lies could only breed more lies, though, and what the gods had set in motion, man could not stop.

They quailed at his offer to strip himself bare, but not for long. The matter had to be settled, one way or another.

As he took off his clothing he was reminded of the disappointment he experienced to have the Hound see him like this. It was much the same for his family. Could they love him just as much, when he was so different?

As he lowered the final piece his mother cried out and looked away. His brother had more determination. But one could not will away the truth.

Sansa knew this well.

Even with his attire laced back into place, Lady Catelyn was not able to meet his eyes. He tried not to be upset. She had lost a daughter, in truth. Possibly both her daughters. He hoped Arya still lived. While his mother cried, Robb tried to scour over his story piece by piece, as if he could learn how this magic had happened by a detailed understanding. Not only Sansa’s troubles concerned him, of course. How quickly his questions turned to asking what lords were in favor in Joffrey’s court. How had the city and army fared from Stannis’s siege? Was it true the city was set afire? Where were the king’s brother and sister being kept? It was miserable, but Sansa saw an opportunity in it.

“I was told little and saw less. But Sandor Clegane was close to the king and commanded some of his men. He would surely know a great deal about both the court and the army,” he told them enthusiastically.

Catelyn and Robb shared an uncertain, concerned look.

 _Oh, let them fret_ , Sansa scoffed. _Robb needs the information the Hound can give. They will give in and let me bring him here, eventually._

The sun had almost fully dawned by the time they shuffled together to the apartments of the lord’s family. There were more embraces, more kisses, promises to break Sansa’s curse. He was drawn into his mother’s room and shared her bed like a little child. Lady Stark didn’t even care at his filthy state.

The mattress was softest feathers, the furs were thick and the hearth was well-stoked. His mother’s arms held a special kind of warmth, the kind that kindled in the heart. It was just in the final moments before Sansa fell into the sweetest, most comfortable sleep he had ever had since the day he woke a boy that he contemplated a man sleeping on the bank of a river; his blankets thin, his arms empty and cold.


	12. The Long, Hard Hello

It was the better part of a sennight before Sansa rode from Riverrun to fetch his absent hound.

Although his family had welcomed him with open arms at his arrival, – even letting him sleep in his mother’s bed! – the following day he was met with strange reservations. Robb explained with only a somewhat shamed face that they needed absolute proof that he was indeed Sansa Stark; even better proof than the word of the mother who had birthed and raised said Sansa Stark.

In the presence of both northern lords and river lords he answered questions and retold stories of his own youth for hours. What was his favorite doll left in Winterfell? Which dress did Arya “accidentally” rip a hole in the back of? What song did Sansa practice for weeks to sing on the occasion of Rickon’s first birthday?

Sansa recited the names of every lord and his eldest son from all the northern houses, although he did mess up some of the northern clans, those men with strange names and strange beards. He spoke of visits each of them had made to Winterfell, of what Wintefell looked like in every detail. The faces of many of the lords betrayed their clear disbelief; their desire to catch him out in some lie. Men he knew well looked at him now like a stranger, or worse.

His mother didn’t need any further convincing, that was plain. Indeed she treated the whole affair as a joyous reminiscence of Sansa’s youth and the time she had all her children together. A happy time she would never completely recreate except in memories like these.

For that reason Sansa did not protest, even though it became increasingly gruelling and humiliating. He had to explain six different times how Joffrey had treated him. Recount repeatedly that the king and queen lied about releasing his father, lied to him about everything. They must have been asking again and again about where and why he was stripped, beaten, and offended because they doubted his story and wanted to catch him up.

But to Sansa each question was like another blow from Blount’s gauntlet.

Even those who believed him didn’t express concern about the increasing obscenity of the questions. As though because he was a man _now_ , he could no longer feel the shame and hurt that being stripped had provoked in him as a girl. Could no longer remember the fear of being raped like Lollys, of being made to bear Joffrey’s sons.

They started asking and suggesting, just as Cersei had, that perhaps Sansa had never truly been a girl, and it took his growing into a youth to make that clear. Against that charge at least, he had his mother’s full support.

Then he had to make himself naked, again, to prove to everyone present, and Lord Tully’s maester, that he satisfied all their prerequisites of manhood.

Sansa didn’t even think about the Hound once that day.

 

* * *

 

 

The next morning the ‘Council of Determining if Sansa was Sansa’ had apparently adjourned, and Robb began to treat him openly as his sister. Or, more accurately, his brother.

Which meant he expected Sansa to help lift the burdens of the northern war. Most pressingly, he needed Sansa to marry the Frey girl Robb himself had slighted.

And before Sansa even had time to process whether he wanted to _marry_ , whether he wanted to marry a _girl_ , and whether he wanted to marry a _Frey_ girl, Robb had spread out maps in front of him and began making queries about the Red Keep and King’s Landing.

Then Sandor Clegane came back to his mind like a crack of lightning.

But mentioning his name seemed to be a cue to rekindle Robb’s suspicions again, because surely the Sansa they had recalled just yesterday that always tattled on Robb, Jon, and Theon whenever they stole cakes, could never be the same Sansa asking today to bring a violent mongrel home.

They would discuss it “later”, he was told.

Sansa quickly determined that “later” meant “hopefully you’ll forget about it”.

He asked about Sandor at supper. He asked about Sandor when they broke their fast the next morn. He mentioned casually how Sandor probably heard Joffrey and the small council speaking of important things many times. He humbly mentioned how incredibly skilled Sandor was with both the sword and lance, and how he’d promised to teach Sansa to be as great a fighter as he was.

Greatjon Umber mocked him then, that unless the Hound could teach Sansa to grow a head taller and be thrice as wide, there wasn’t a word of truth to that.

The hour Sansa spent in his room sulking over this insult gave him time to devise a new approach.

First he sought out his mother, and told her how _safe_ he had felt when protected by Clegane, and how until he could defend himself, he didn’t think he’d ever feel so _safe_ again until the Hound was with him. Lady Catelyn reassured him ever so much of the skill and bravery of their bannermen and guards, but her eyes held a small glimmer of uncertainty.

Then Sansa caught his brother’s ear as he walked from one important engagement to another. He told Robb how very much it wounded him to have relied on Clegane to come this far, and taken him from all his advantages in King’s Landing, and yet cast him aside. And how _dishonorable_ that action seemed. Even if the Hound was more monster than man, surely it was a stain on Sansa himself to neglect the agent of his good fortune.

“Very well Sansa,” Robb sighed, noticeably exhausted by this onslaught. “I will organise tomorrow for a small party to accompany you in fetching the Lannister hound,” he rubbed his temples, nudging aside the severely-fashioned crown adorning him.

“A small party? You needn’t trouble yourself. I can go now to find him,” he chirped with rekindled enthusiasm. He would have to follow the river this time, as he had not noted the path he took to the road, but that would only be a brief delay.

“Alone? Don’t be absurd, Sansa. Mother would never forgive me to let you go unaccompanied, and besides, how could I trust that the Hound would not slay or snatch you away again?”

“Honestly, Robb,” Sansa huffed, “What purpose could there possibly be in bringing me here, relying solely on my goodwill to return to his grasp, only to abscond with me once more?”

“What purpose was there in taking father’s head rather than sending him to the Wall?” Robb hissed in return.

“That was for Joffrey’s sick amusement alone,” Sansa whispered, keeping his eyes open so no memories could appear behind them.

“Well you’ve answered your own question, then,” Robb sneered, and turned as though the conversation was over.

“Wait, Robb, your grace!” Sansa slipped around in front of him. “Please, how can I ask Clegane to trust a group of armed men? How can _we_ even trust them? Any man could have a grudge against his brother…,” He murmured. 

“You are not leaving this castle without an escort,” Robb said with finality.

“Why not a single man then? Just to ensure all is as I’ve told you,” Sansa begged.

“A single man? What man would be willing to go alone against the Hound?” Robb scoffed.

“Against?” Sansa yelped. “So, it is one man to escort me, and then four more to guard _him_?” He laughed at the absurdity of it.

“You don’t seem to realize the concession I have made in merely allowing him to come here,” Robb growled.

“Please, is not two men enough? They can tarry a little behind me, and see Clegane’s actions without risking themselves overmuch.” A full band of armed men would seem terribly threatening to the man already unconfident of Sansa’s intentions. He would prefer to avoid that if he could.

“I will speak to Ser Robin tomorrow and see what can be arranged,” Robb sighed, pinching between his eyes. “I’ll hear no more of this for now, understand Sansa?” He said sternly, but not without affection.

“Yes, your grace,” Sansa conceded, bowing deeply. His bow was not as smooth as his curtseys had been, but they were still very much passable for now.

 

* * *

 

 

Another day went by while volunteers were raised for this apparently undesirable duty. In the end, they did find two: a northern man-at-arms called Tyn, and one tremulous fellow from Riverrun who had been promised his knighthood upon the success of the mission.

Sansa hoped _he_ could be granted a knighthood for such a trivial task.   

The Riverrun man, Derren was his name, watched Sansa with a nervous owlishness, but said almost nothing after their initial introduction in the morning. The northerner was keener to talk, but it was quickly made plain that he was _most_ curious about Sansa’s _predicament_. A little too curious, and a little more forward with each question.

It would have been a simple thing to discourage him from saying frank and crude things to a lady, but Sansa did not know how things like this went among men. Although he had been trying his utmost to affect an attitude of masculine stoicism and confidence, he resorted to making his voice timid and mournful, even forcing out a feminine tear when talking of how it troubled him still to talk about the matter, to steer this unpleasant topic aside.

Every hour made him more and more keen to be with Sandor again, and the two men didn’t have to try hard to lag behind him.

Although he had remembered the camp was around a bend in the river, it still was a surprise when his horse trotted down a bank and was abruptly face-to-face with the Hound’s black one. The horrible thing whinnied and darted forward with its ears back, startling Sansa’s mount into giving a little scream of its own.

Stranger stopped suddenly, pulled taut against a lead Sansa hadn’t noticed. He reared up, but his intended target had already turned and bolted in the opposite direction.

“No! No, you… wretched thing!” Sansa tugged on the reins and ground his hips down into the saddle. The horse slowed, but was entirely unsettled, pacing around and shaking its head. Her companions came up, swords unsheathed.

“It’s alright,” Sansa protested. “The horses startled each other!” Better not to tell the whole truth, lest they blame Sandor for his horse’s bad temper. Derren patted Sansa’s horse on the neck, soothing it with comforting words he didn’t sound like he believed.

“Thank you so much,” Sansa gushed when his mount had calmed. He felt guilty for his earlier disdain for the man. He would gladly called him ‘Ser’.

Despite all this hubbub, Sandor had not made himself known. They approached the campsite on foot to avoid more tussles. The black horse watched them aggressively, but made no further move to attack. A firepit, much enlarged from the one Sansa remembered, was present, but the coals were black and cold, and no possessions were anywhere to be seen.

Sansa’s heart rose into his throat and his eyes burned hot. Sandor couldn’t have left. It had been longer than he’d intended to be gone but… but he just couldn’t have left. Not so soon. Not without trying to reach Sansa again.

Surely?

“Well, must be round somewhere. Wouldn’t leave his horse behind,” Tyn drawled.

“ _I’d_ leave that horse behind,” Derren mumbled.  

 _Of course. He’d never abandon his horse_. Sansa’s pulse ceased fluttering, but his stomach still twisted.

“He might have changed location… somewhere safer, perhaps,” Sansa mused. He began searching for signs to show where he’d gone, but being honest with himself, he had no idea what he was looking for. It would just be too embarrassing to stand here looking useless. That’s what girls were meant to do.

“Something under the horse,” Tyn declared unenthusiastically. A focused inspection proved him right. The ground near the tree Stranger was tied to was clearly disturbed. It looked exactly like a badly hidden cache. _I suppose it doesn’t need to be concealed well when it has a vicious guard._

“I don’t think it would help us much to see what it is…,” Sansa said hesitantly. His companions nodded with approval. Any excuse to keep clear of that animal.

“Well,” Sansa began, then hesitated. He thought it best to wait here until Sandor returned. It couldn’t be a long time. But the others may not like that idea. They would probably like even less the thought of returning to Riverrun and telling their king they left his brother behind.

It was a tricky situation.

“Well,” he repeated, “He’ll surely be here soon. Why don’t I and one of you wait for him, and the other can take word back to Riverrun of our circumstances?” He suggested calmly.

“Oh, aye. That’s a sensible notion,” Tyn agreed. “You head off an’ I’ll stay here to mind the ladlassie.”

Sansa immediately reconsidered if it was so sensible after all. 

Derren glanced between them worriedly, licking his lips.

“I’m not sure… not sure it’d be wise to, ahm, leave one man to such peril,” he shifted from one foot to another awkwardly.

“Two men,” Sansa seethed, his recently found respect for the man deteriorating.

“Aye, two,” Tyn nodded, fixing Sansa with more of that queer appraisal, and Sansa was _sure_ he didn’t want to be alone with him.

He decided to risk approaching Stranger. The others wouldn’t dare, so he could at least prevent them from returning him to Robb by force. With palms up he walked slowly towards the horse, eyes a little lidded, trying to think non-threatening thoughts.

“Oh… oh, be careful-,” someone began, before being interrupted by a yelp and a thundering clatter. Sansa backed up and hesitantly turned around, trying to keep an eye on the snorting horse.

“What’s..?“ He stopped to give a gasp of delight.

Between him and the two escorts was the Hound; Tyn knocked to the ground, and Derren looking horrified at a dagger raised to his own visor, plainly regretting all of his decisions leading up to this moment.

“Sandor!” Sansa called out, bouncing over with relief.

Clegane held up a hand signalling him to halt.

“Whose men are these?” He asked once Sansa had kept his distance and gulped down mouthfuls of frustration.

“My brother’s… well, he is from the north,” he gestured to Tyn, “and he serves my grandfather, Lord Hoster Tully,” he nodded his head to Derren, who could not nod in return without inflicting grievous wounds.

“And you trust them?” Sandor asked. Tyn had regained his feet and was trying to edge around the Hound towards Sansa. The little lord didn’t need to be told to circle in the same direction, keeping the bigger man between them.

“I trust them to deliver us to my brother without causing us any harm,” he gave his most generous answer. Even if they intended otherwise they were unmistakably outclassed here. Sansa believed the Hound could have killed them both with that ambush, instead of merely indisposing them.

“As you say, then,” Sandor rasped, stepping aside, towards Sansa. Derren appeared to almost weep with relief and Sansa could easily have joined him in that.

“Let me gather my effects and we’ll be off then, ey?” Clegane asked, guiding Sansa towards the black horse, who was completely agreeable now. The two-faced monster.

The trio from Riverrun waited for him awkwardly, each harbouring a slightly different kind of tension. When they were finally on their way, Sansa could no longer supress his elation. Though Derren hurried a little ahead and Tyn tarried a little behind, they were not so far away that Sansa could speak freely, but he managed to bring his horse close enough to use a quiet tone.

“Thank you for staying,” he gushed to a completely impassive Sandor. “Thank you for trusting me.”

“Didn’t have much else better to do,” Clegane finally shrugged a reply. Sansa bit back his vexation.

“You were terribly frightening back there, when you jumped out of nowhere onto us,” he offered instead, hoping to please him. Sandor gave him a frown.

“Wasn’t intended for you,” he gruffed. “You know better.”

“I do know,” Sansa nodded. “I didn’t mean I was afraid of you, I just meant…,” he wasn’t sure what he meant, only that it was not a bad thing, the thrill that had gone through him to see the Hound overpower the others effortlessly.

“I missed you,” he sighed out. Clegane flicked his eyes over, but remained stoic.

“Took your time,” he remarked without displeasure. Sansa sighed harder.

“It wasn’t hard to convince Robb and mother who I was, but convincing them to permit you _was_ ,” he grumbled. “I have been kneaded like dough for whatever I can tell them of the Lannisters. It pains me that Robb may have conceded to see you for that reason primarily.” He glared at his horse’s mane.

“Makes sense,” Sandor replied disinterestedly. His unaffected demeanour was irritating, even though Sansa recognized the sense in it. He decided to pressure him just a littlest bit; see what he could ignore.

“Robb agreed to marry a daughter of Lord Frey, but was unable to keep his word, and has bid me now to marry the lady in his place,” he announced. He’d have liked the declaration to carry the weight of his own thoughts on the matter, but to be honest he did not quite know what he thought, and so his tone was just as muddled.

“Oh?” Sandor rumbled, a swinging inflection of his voice poorly disguising his interest. “And how does that suit you?” he queried with more controlled pitch.

“I don’t know,” Sansa admitted. There was one thing he could tell was different though.

“I don’t fear it,” in fact it sounded a little silly at all, to fear wedding some mystery woman, unless she was a terrible creature like Cersei.

“At least that’s changed, has it?” Sandor laughed roughly.

“Yes. I came to fear my marriage to Joffrey, feared being married to any man… but what is there to fear from a girl?” He confessed. “It appears there is no means under the sun to release me from my duty to marry. But at least now I will not be the one hoping there is mercy on the wedding night.”

Sandor’s expression melted only for a moment, but that flicker was of a deep enough sadness to pain Sansa’s heart.

“I should have protected you long before this,” he whispered. “Before you sought a curse to protect you.”

It wasn’t manly to shed tears. Sansa excused himself that he was still learning.


	13. Ready Or Not, Here I Come

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More set-up of mundane plot! A full smut chapter coming shortly to compensate for your time!

To Sansa’s great relief, from the day he arrived back to Riverrun with the Hound, he wasn’t asked a single other thing about King’s Landing, or Joffrey, or Stannis, or gates and bridges and rivers.

To Sansa’s great disappointment, the Hound’s time and attention were completely engulfed with questions about King’s Landing, and Joffrey, and Stannis, and gates and bridges and rivers.

Sandor barely said more than a few words to Sansa when they chanced to meet, making no effort to find him in a quiet moment nor, it seemed, asking Robb for permission to swear his sword to Sansa, thus making himself a constant companion of the lad who was _the entire reason he was here_.

Honestly, Robb and Sandor were as engrossed in discussions and disagreements on matters of war and tactics as if they’d come together entirely for that purpose. Despite seeming to be barely able to tolerate each other.

Mother had told him the Hound wasn’t going to be permitted to wander around without leave, but surely there was some way he could find to spend a few moments with Sansa. Even if just to ask him how his day was going?

It wasn’t fair. At least that was one way the world continued to be _consistent_ no matter how Sansa changed.

The looming dread of his future marriage was weighing heavier on him now his concern for Clegane’s return was assuaged. His mother had impressed on him the importance of this union, not simply just for the strategic importance of the Twins, but to uphold Robb’s honor in the eyes of the realm. The sting was lessened to know that he would not have to remain with his bride’s family, as he would have if _he_ were the bride.

Despite all that, he couldn’t find any joy in this situation. Even the thought of the wedding, the dancing and singing and feasting, didn’t please him. He wouldn’t be _asked_ to dance. He could not hang on a strong arm as his feet twirled…

He shook his head. If he must, he would directly demand Clegane be appointed his shield to secure his agreement to the marriage, but it would be so much better if that could be arranged without exhausting any more of his family’s goodwill.

At the earliest opportunity Sansa begged a private moment of Robb’s time, claiming to want to know more about the Freys and what was required of him for their alliance.

“The Freys have sent an envoy to treat with us over the betrothal,” Robb informed him. “I expect them to be here in several days, but I have not yet sent them word of your arrival nor your… change. We will have all our northern bannermen present to attest to the truth of your identity, then you can extend the offer to wed one of Lord Frey’s daughters.”

He clapped a hand to Sansa’s shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze to allay the seriousness of his expression. “Lord Frey has a great many daughters,” Robb sighed. “There’s bound to be one agreeable to you. And besides,” he smiled thinly, “the marriage only needs to bring an alliance and perhaps a child or two. You needn’t, you know,” he gestured bizarrely upwards. Sansa was utterly at a loss.

“You needn’t live with her too closely or see her too often. You won’t need to frequently share a bed,” Robb explained with embarrassment. Sansa nodded, mutely.

He was quite relieved, but also, he was actually quite cross. Robb was telling him he had little to no obligation to this woman? No responsibility to love her, to make her feel cherished and happy as the mother of his children? That wasn’t how his lord father and lady mother had told him a marriage should be at all. This seemed more like something Cersei would say, or the Hound, both with tongues made bitter from bitter wine.

Disappointment curled in his heart at Robb’s disregard for his future goodsister. At this world where men were told what they _might_ do and women what they _must_ do. At Sandor Clegane, for not coming to find Sansa as soon as he could and kissing him again and again.

This was not the time to press any issue but his primary goal, however.

“Has Clegane been as beneficial to your cause as I predicted?” He enquired evenly.

“He has not been miserly with the secrets of his former lords,” Robb said gravely.

“Surely that suits you well,” Sansa tried to keep all confidence from his voice. Robb scowled.

“What are the reasons a man would prove so faithless? Is it simply his nature, or does he hope to profit from it?” Robb bit his lip, his eyebrows crinkling together. “Or is it deception, to confuse our tactics and waste our resources?”

Sansa gulped down exasperation, as well as a terrible droplet of doubt. The Hound _had_ told Sansa he couldn’t _know_ to trust him, but only wait and see in the end.

“How can we know the truth of any man’s intent? He has always been true to me, and even if you do not trust him to direct the path of your armies, I will continue to trust him to defend my life,” he gave Robb a broad smile and squared his shoulders, hoping he appeared confident. “I hope you will allow me to make that judgement for myself. Especially if I am to have a wife, and even more, a _child_ to protect.”

Robb blinked, looking at Sansa with mild surprise.

“Yes, I… I will bear that in mind. I apologize Sansa. It’s difficult to remember that you don’t need a brother’s guidance anymore.”

“A brother’s guidance?” Sansa repeated, not understanding.

“To avoid men who would abuse a woman’s trust and stain her honor,” Robb explained sternly.

_Like Lady Jeyne?_ Sansa wondered in the privacy of his mind. _Or if a woman assents to her honor’s affront, does it still stain her?_

“Yes,” he agreed, bowing low. “And I promise never to be that man, either.”

Robb laughed warmly.

“No-one could believe that of you Sansa. You are so tender-hearted,” he took Sansa’s hands in his own and clasped them gently.

“Perhaps that is what caused Sandor Clegane to choose to serve the Starks rather than Lannister gold. We do not neglect nor abuse those who are faithful to us,” Sansa suggested lightly.

Robb gave a thin smile.

“If he proves as honest as you say I will not be ungrateful.”

Sansa smiled in return, and gave another bow as he took his leave. He could be a dutiful brother, and a good husband, but he could do this best if he had the chance to name one of his new family.

He didn’t have the patience to wait any longer. If things _had_ changed between them, despite…. despite Sansa’s best efforts, he had to know now, not when Clegane was ready to make it known.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t too difficult to locate his mother’s primary handmaiden, an older woman who spoke all the rights words of courteous deference, but didn’t bother to display it much with her mannerisms. Sansa suspected she either had more sway over the household than was apparent, or she _thought_ she did. Either way, she was the best chance Sansa had right now.

“Demmy,” Sansa approached her with a detached air. “I have a dagger that Sandor Clegane lent me, and I need it returned. Could you take it to him?” He tried to make this question sound as though he were asking it of himself as well, lacking confidence in the woman’s capability.

“I surely can, my lord,” Demmy said agreeably, bobbing a curtsey so shallow and brief it looked more like a nervous twitch.

“You _do_ know where he is residing at present, don’t you?” Sansa asked, filling his voice with doubt. Demmy narrowed her eyes.

“Of course, my lord, I know near everything that happens in these walls,” she all but snapped.

“Then that is…?” Sansa raised his head high so he was looking down his nose at her.

“In the barracks, in the finer rooms for visiting knights, my lord” Demmy hissed. Sansa nodded curtly, then handed over the dagger, still wrapped in its leather strips.

“I do hope it reaches him speedily,” he clipped as a final remark, turning smartly and walking away.

“With _most_ haste, my lord,” was quietly grumbled at his departing back. Sansa would try to remember to have a kind word to his mother on Demmy’s behalf.

 

* * *

 

Sansa declined from attending supper, telling his mother he had eaten probably too much of the midday stew, and now it wasn’t agreeing with him.

Lady Catelyn had practically relished the opportunity to fuss over him; having cool water imbued with lemon slices fetched for him, feeling his forehead and tutting him over bad eating habits.

It took longer than he’d hoped, but still left him ample time once he was alone to nonchalantly stroll to the barracks while most of Riverrun’s inhabitants were busy eating. He nodded sombrely to those men he did see, walking with the brisk determination of someone who had important things to attend to.

When he reached the upper level he stepped close to each door, listening for sounds from within, and giving a gentle knock when he heard nothing. With no replies, he cautiously opened each door a crack and peeked inside. By the third door he felt so petrified he could barely breathe, but he pressed on. No point running away after he’d come this far.

When he opened the door of the fifth room and spied a dog’s head helm resting on a small table, he gave a sob of sweet relief. He checked the hallway was empty and then scuttled inside, closing the door after him whisper-quiet.

Well, he was here! And that hadn’t been so difficult at all. There was _no_ excuse why Sandor could not have similarly found a way to see him in private, somehow. He sat himself down on the hard straw-filled bed and thought over what he should say. It depended on what Sandor said, he supposed. What if Clegane decided they should be no more intimate than a lord and his sworn shield, or even… even less than that? Should he try to convince him otherwise or would it… not… not be worth it?

The sound of people returning to the building, going about their evening routines, only raised Sansa’s tension. He couldn’t leave now, not until most folks were asleep. What if Sandor didn’t come back to his bed? _What! Where else could he be sleeping?_

Sansa’s mind roamed through a hundred terrible thoughts, so busy at this that when the door creaked open he jumped with alarm.

The Hound stood there with a baffled face, giving no greeting. Sansa rose from the bed, but before he could move towards Clegane, voices sounded in the hallway, moving close to the open door. In a blink, the Hound was inside the room and the door firmly shut.

The two men stood there, each with a question in their expression, and neither knowing how to open this exchange.


	14. What Wolves Do To Dogs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what sucks? Writing scenes where both people are the same gender! “He hoped he wasn’t keeping him from having his way” ugh wtf I’m too lazy for this.

Sansa was the first to break the silence.

“Good evening, Sandor,” he chirped, hoping to disperse the suspicious face Clegane was sporting.

“Is it?” Sandor rasped in reply. “I suppose so. Plenty of wine at your brother’s tables,” he shrugged, and Sansa noticed he held a skin of it in his hand. As though he could not bear to be parted from it. At least he was committed to _some_ things in life.

“It has been hard to find a chance to speak to you,” Sansa began, “You do not make yourself easily available, even when you aren’t advising my brother.”

“Advising? Is that what it’s called? More like being tortured for the answer to every miserable question they can dream up. Oh they’d love if I refused to speak, too. Can see them itching to rip out a few nails,” he laughed horribly. “Fucking wonderful to see how it irritates them that I talk freely.”

Sansa pursed his lip to hide his disapproval of Sandor’s speaking cruelly of Robb.

“Well, despite that, here I am. Did you not want to visit me also?” He attempted to prod a reaction out of the man.

“What for? Cakes and gossip in the presence of forty chaperones?” Clegane waved a hand dismissively. “Your brother will have all the knowledge he needs from me soon and I will have more chances to see you in the yard. You did say you wanted to learn to fight.”

Was the Hound purposely misunderstanding what Sansa wanted? Or was he simply dense? Sansa didn’t feel there was really such a strong need for words between them any longer anyway. He moved forward, up against the chest clad in a tunic slightly too small.

“I did not think it would be proper to do this in the training yard,” he smiled, clasping his hands behind Sandor’s back and pulling himself even closer. The Hound raised his good eyebrow.

“Is that proper at all for a man betrothed to a lady?” He asked smartly.

“Oh, how delightful,” Sansa seethed coolly, stepping away and turning his back. “That at heart you are truly a man of scrupulous honor and noble deeds.”

He was picked up and tossed on the bed like a pillow.

Sandor was on top of him in the next instant, keeping Sansa pinned with only his hands.

“Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?” He smiled avariciously from above. “A true knight? I couldn’t bear to disappoint you.”

“Don’t! Don’t!” Sansa protested unhappily. “I can’t help the way you make me feel. You know that, don’t you?”

Sandor lowered himself down completely, giving a moan Sansa could feel in his spine.

“Aye, I really do,” he huffed. Sansa raised his legs to twine behind the small of Sandor’s back, unable to prevent his hips from jerking upwards into the other man’s abdomen. Well, really just twinging with the intent to move upwards, since Sandor was as heavy as a siege weapon.

Sansa was able to writhe with all his strength without fear of hurting him, able to grind his stiff manhood into Sandor with the additional gratification of knowing he was giving pleasure as well as receiving it.

This must be what it was to be wild. Like the folk living beyond the wall, who followed no king and heeded no laws. To have nothing be forbidden from you.

“Sansa,” his name a warm breath in his ear, “do you really think your brother’s court is nothing like Kings Landing?” Clegane huffed.

“What? What does… that have to do with anything now?” Sansa pouted, turning his head to Sandor’s neck. It was the unscarred side facing him. That must have been purposeful. The next chance he had, Sansa would cover his scars with kisses, and Sandor could ponder _that_ purpose.

“Approaching you would be a quick way to be expelled from your brother’s service,” Sandor told him, rising just enough to be able to run his warm hands up Sansa’s sides. “And this? This would be a quick way to lose my head.”

“I would have been happy just for words from you, mayhaps kisses, but anything at all more than ignoring me,” Sansa complained, drawing loose the ties at the top of Sandor’s tunic. “How could I know whether you still thought the same about me? Especially after… last time,” he shamelessly sought affection, stroking both sides of the Hound’s face, even though he had to reach far for the scarred side he was keeping turned away.

Sandor groaned, sitting up entirely, kneeling over Sansa and trailing his hands across him. “Why must we talk about it at all?” He complained.

“How else will I know what I am to you?” Sansa reasoned petulantly.

The Hound bent down over him, black hair tickling Sansa’s throat.

“You’ve brought yourself here, so I won’t pass up the chance to show you,” he rumbled. He tugged Sansa’s tunic up sharply, his fingers hot against the newly bare stomach.

“Mmmmm,” Sansa murmured softly, not so much that it would dissuade Clegane. He’d be lying if he didn’t admit his impatience to see Sandor again wasn’t in part due to memories just like this.

They made short work of Sansa’s clothes, and he managed to pull Sandor’s tunic off during the confusion as well. The thrills of the flesh were made even more potent when he could thrill his eyes also.

In a fluid movement Sandor climbed off the bed and lifted Sansa up, turning him to sit sideways on it, his back to the wall and his calves hanging over the edge. It was exciting, in some way, to be so helpless against him.

“I don’t give a fuck for poetry,” Sandor suddenly declared, one knee along Sansa’s thigh and the other foot on the floor. “You know that. But I won’t leave you _uncertain_ of how it is between us,” he smiled like a predator, with his teeth flashing, and Sansa squirmed involuntarily.

Then without further word the Hound crouched back down onto the floor, pushing the lad’s legs to spread open, and took Sansa’s cock between his teeth.

Sansa clapped his hands to his face. The flesh beneath his palms burned hot.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” he was caught in a chant of breathless fervor, unable to articulate either his horror or his delight. Sandor gave a mean chuckle, but then opened his jaw and let Sansa free. And then he licked him. One, long stroke from base to tip and Sansa’s throat opened to let free the wail that forced its way out.

“Hush,” Sandor grated, reaching up to place one warm, oversize palm over Sansa’s mouth. “As much as I like your song, little bird, I’m not the only one who’ll hear it now.”

Sansa nodded his understanding, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Aye, I do get less screaming when they don’t look,” Sandor laughed quietly.

Sansa opened his eyes again, tugging angrily at the hand on his mouth.

“Don’t get yourself worked up now,” Sandor chided him, smiling with half his face. He glanced down. “Well, do get yourself worked up, but over the right thing.”

“You’re terrible,” Sansa whispered weakly, his hands going to Sandor’s shoulders for support, for want of touching him. He dug his nails into those shoulders as he felt the warmth of the Hound’s mouth envelop him.

It was… Sansa didn’t know the words for what it was. He put one of his hands over his own mouth now, having no self-control left to defend against outbursts of shrieking.

Sandor’s lips couldn’t properly close around him, but it didn’t matter, Sansa didn’t care. His cock was swiped with wet heat by Sandor’s tongue, held in the callused, sure grip of a palm so large it almost engulfed him entirely.

He daren’t close his eyes lest Clegane purposely misinterpret it, but having to watch himself be squeezed, licked and caressed was a torture.

Sansa had dreamed of this, in the darkest moments of the night, unwilling to remember it while the sun shone. Better not to hope too much at all, rather than be disappointed.

Each motion over his shaft was an appeal to lose himself to the mindless euphoria that always waited in Sandor’s embrace, and though Sansa wanted to wait, it had been too long and he craved it too desperately.

The familiar slide of a rough, spittle-slicked hand was comforting, the unfamiliar soft heat of Sandor’s tongue was disconcerting. The second hand had kneaded the flesh of Sansa’s inner thigh, and now tenderly squeezed his scrotum.

Sansa whimpered as the Hound’s fingers wandered lower. He was right on the edge, a droplet already spilling from him, and then his cock was enveloped again by the sweet heat of Sandor’s throat, and he was entirely undone.

He convulsed as his seed issued out uncontrollably, but the Hound’s tongue kept tormenting him, causing Sansa to give a muffled moan.

“It’s too much, too much, too much!” He simpered, relaxing like a dress dropped to the floor as he was finally released. “You…” he had an accusation to make, but he wasn’t quite sure what for.

He had only barely stopped twitching before Sandor stood, calmly unbuckling his belt and then untying his breeches, not breaking his gaze from Sansa’s flushed face and gasping mouth. With his final pieces of clothing shed, he gently pressed Sansa’s knees back together and climbed onto the bed over him, kneeling astride his pale legs.

And Sansa was face to face with the proof that Sandor had enjoyed the wicked things he’d done to him. Very much indeed.

He was still too overwhelmed to bother being shy. Sansa grasped Sandor’s cock with both hands and opened his mouth wide, or as wide as he could while giving a coy grin.

The Hound bared his teeth in what could possibly pass as a smile, bringing his hips forward to enter Sansa’s mouth. Just a little at first, that was dutifully licked and mouthed, and then a small portion more with each subsequent roll of his hips.

It wasn’t forceful or deep enough to be uncomfortable, but the steady, inevitable movement of Sandor’s manhood into his mouth was more than Sansa could keep up with. He let his jaw slack, allowing as much entry as the Hound wanted, just trying to keep a firm hold with his lips and tongue.

One of Sandor’s hands moved to the base of Sansa’s skull, cradling his head even as it gently brought him forward, encouraging to take just the slightest bit more. Only a few months prior Sansa would have thought, would have _known_ , that having the Hound guide his cock into his mouth was degrading, appalling!

But Sansa loved it, and that was the truth. He showed his relish by squeezing it out of his mouth with a tight slurp, his tongue staying behind to lick it teasingly. He was immediately ready to go slack again as it was pushed back in. Sansa chuckled in his throat as Sandor lost control of himself enough to give an intense and gritty moan.

“You watch yourself,” Sandor told him with false menace. “Or else!”

“Hmmmhmm,” Sansa drew firmly on the manhood that pulled lazily out of his mouth again. “Or you’ll what?” He laughed when he was unobstructed. “You’ve already _reprimanded_ me,” he tittered.

“Oh, you’re young enough I could do it again,” Clegane mused. Sansa gasped with affront and naughty joyfulness, then allowed Sandor to resume an even stroke in and out of his mouth, not too deep nor too shallow. “And again and again, probably. Until you’d be begging me to _stop_.”

Sansa whimpered timidly, and pressed on with renewed determination to vanquish Sandor so thoroughly he was in no state to punish anybody! He heeded the request given the first time he’d had this cock in his mouth, and followed its progress in and out with his hand gripped firmly around it. Each time it slipped out he pulled his lips against it with enough pressure to make Sandor have to force him to release it.

“Gods, they’re going to make an eighth hell just for me,” the Hound rasped, prompting Sansa to giggle again, and then flick the retreating intruder with his tongue. “Uhhn, let me take over, I’m going to fucking come,” he huffed, gently taking Sansa’s hand off his cock and grasping it tightly himself. His eyes slumped almost closed under heavy lids.

Sansa’s breathing quickened, and he focused entirely on his mouth’s grip and his tongue’s friction, letting his wet, newly unoccupied fingers trail down the Hound’s strong thighs.

It wasn’t more than a couple more strokes before Sandor ground a disjointed curse out between his teeth and jerked back, taking himself entirely out of Sansa’s mouth.

Just as he made the final stroke and went to catch the fluid with his other hand, Sansa darted forward, grasping a mouthful of the tip.

“Fu! Uck!” Sandor barked, seizing Sansa by the hair, but unable to pull him away before the thick fluid filled his mouth, teased out remorselessly by his tongue. “Shit!” Clegane gave a few more vicious pumps with his hand, too far gone to prevent Sansa doing whatever he wanted.

With the grace of a few moments he managed to collect himself, pulling away and sitting back on his haunches. He fixed Sansa with an exasperated glare.

Sansa returned a feeble smile, swallowing a few times to clear his throat, and as much of the salty flavour as he could.

The Hound reached forward and took hold of Sansa’s chin, tilting his face up to meet him eye to eye.

“When you have a dog that’s been eating bones,” he whispered, prompting Sansa to lift an eyebrow in confusion, “And you let it have tender flesh from the sweetest joint,” he continued, his voice somehow becoming even deeper, “You know what it’ll do? It’s going to bother and beg you ceaselessly, hoping for another bite.”

Sansa smiled, licking the corner of his poor bruised lips.

“And do you believe wolves are any different?” he crooned shamelessly, though he couldn’t help the blush.

Clegane’s head lowered to capture Sansa’s mouth in a deep kiss. It tasted of salt and bitterness, the unpalatable residue of both of their raptures.

It was awful. It was wonderful. It was so absolutely Sandor.


	15. The Delightful and Agreeable Tea Party

On the morning it was announced the Freys had arrived to Riverrun, Sansa was very relieved. He had been subject to several rehearsals of what he, his brother, and the other lords present were going to say to best convince the visitors of the truth about Sansa.

The Hound was to be a conspicuous guard, to prove the tale of how he’d escaped King’s Landing, but Robb had decided Sansa’s story of praying for his change was too strange and dubious to be believed. Sansa couldn’t really explain it himself and didn’t know for _sure_ how it came about, and besides, it made the whole situation seem his fault.

Instead they were to claim it was some strange sorcery of the Lannisters that had turned him into a man. After all, had their servant Varys not performed some bizarre ritual on Sansa? To tell this lie to the Freys, a house his mother saw as supremely disreputable, was acceptable, though uncomfortable, but it worried Sansa that each time his brother or mother repeated the story, they seemed to say it with more and more genuine belief.

Did it matter? Possibly not.

To make his family happy, and keep each other safe; that was most important.

But all this turmoil had made him fervently wish for the matter to be over with sooner rather than later. The only thing he still dreaded was the possibility he may have to once more remove his clothing before many eyes. Robb tried to assure him this shouldn’t be necessary, but Sansa highly doubted that; it had been necessary for each and every person who believed him prior to this!

The Frey envoy and Robb’s council was formally introduced in the great hall, despite they mostly already knew each other. Of course, it was truly to present Sansa in public for the first time, clad in a brand new tunic, breeches and surcoat that had been made for him. He had done quite a bit of the embroidery himself, which was blue thread against the Stark grey cloth. His mother had arranged both of their hair into two long braids that fell either side of their face, highlighting the resemblance between them, as well as softening Sansa’s sharper jaw to promote his feminine features.

They Freys all looked confused when Robb introduced Sansa as “his brother, recently freed from Lannister hands by their former vassal, Sandor Clegane”. Which was fair, since there was a lot of things in that declaration that were bound to raise questions.

The Hound was among the group of men guarding the audience room. In fact, he was one of those immediately at the door, so no man could avoid seeing him as they entered.

The expression on Sandor’s face was vicious. Every Frey, and many of Robb’s men besides, were giving him a wide berth. Whatever reason the others attributed to his foul temper, Sansa knew the truth. It was for him, for having to be put on show again and made a curiosity for people to ogle. It was a small solace to Sansa that someone was suffering his indignity along with him, but a solace all the same.

Lady Catelyn played hostess despite her technical status as prisoner, ensuring everyone had wine or ale, and directing the servants who arrived with charming little cakes from the kitchens. They were as beautiful as any sweet Sansa had seen in the capital; carefully glazed crescents of apple topped each one like tiny cresting waves. When he bit into his, however, it was utterly disappointing; the cakes were stale, probably having been made too far in advance in order to allow time for the intricate decoration.

“So… your grace,” Lothar Frey, the eldest Frey present, began once they were all comfortable, “Am I to assume from the presence of your… of… Sansa… that the Lannisters no longer hold your sisters hostage?” He was alternating between glaring and wincing at Sansa, which was a rather amusing juxtaposition on his mean-featured little face.

“That is correct,” Robb nodded, “They have not held my sister Arya since they arrested my father Eddard Stark, though they told us and the realm otherwise. And as I mentioned previously, Sansa was freed from their grasp, but not before they _cursed_ her to the body of a man.”

Sansa hid well the little flutter in the corner of one cheek.

“A curse?” A somewhat smaller and younger, but if anything even meaner looking, Frey repeated this statement in an utterly flat tone.

“Yes!” Robb asserted. He stood then and spread his hand towards the northern lords that sat at the table with him. “Here with me are Lord Umber, Lord Bolton, Lady Mormont, Lord Glover and Ser Wendel the son of Lord Manderly, all of whom have known my family well and visited Winterfell while my sister and I lived there. They can all affirm to you that this man _is_ my sister Sansa, now my brother. The same person, merely a different form.”

Those named by Robb all gave a brief affirmation or, in Lord Bolton’s case, a terse nod.

“Well I’m… sure my father will be as glad as we are to hear your remaining sibling has returned to you,” Lothar proclaimed, completely unconvincingly.

“I thank you, and him,” Robb replied. “I am very aware and regretful that I broke faith with Lord Frey in the matter of my promise to marry one of his daughters. The fault lies with me alone; I had to choose between two paths of dishonor,” Robb closed his eyes momentarily.

When he opened them again, he turned towards Sansa, and all other faces in the room turned as well to echo him.

Sansa realised it was his moment in a split second of panic, instantly dowsed by waves of confidence given by repeated practice.

“I am willing to honor my brother’s debt to your family,” Sansa recited, standing and bowing to the Frey party. “I would be glad to marry a daughter of Lord Frey’s and respect and revere her all the days of my life.” The final part of his speech had been somewhat of his own invention. Although he did not know if he would ever like his bride, he knew what it was to be a noblewoman bought and sold, and he _did_ intend to respect her.

The response to his speech was silence.

Sansa tried smiling.

It had no effect.

He bowed again, very low this time, his braids falling onto the table in a beautiful swirl of auburn.

But when he rose, the faces of those he addressed were, if anything, even more stony and horrified.

Finally, as slowly as the spread of water from a scarcely leaking bucket, Lothar Frey stood, bracing his hands against the table. Sansa remained standing as well and fixed his expression to be humble but earnest.

Lothar immediately turned to Robb, not sparing Sansa another look.

“Do you think us fools?” He hissed. “First you scorn our sisters by marrying some slattern wench-,”

“You will never speak of my queen that way!” Robb roared, standing up so fast his chair tipped backwards. Lothar ignored his interruption, continuing on with his own roaring, spittle flying from his lips.

“And now you expect us to believe some fancy boy-child is really your _sister_ , and we should be oh-so-honored if she, or he, or _it_ , were to wed into noble house Frey?”

“Sansa is my _brother_ now, my _heir_ ,” Robb snapped pointedly. “Your ugly sisters would never do better than the heir to Winterfell and the entire North!”

Sansa held himself firm. He had expected such insults. _These men are nothing compared to Joffrey’s cruelty._ _I will keep my face as stoic as the Hound’s._

“Please, my lords!” His lady mother begged, struggling to keep herself calm as tempers flared. “Please, perhaps we should part and consider our situations for the rest of the day, and resume our talks later.”

“We don’t need any time to consider your _lies_ ,” spat Lothar. “You should have broken your oath to our father frankly, and not tried to pawn off some Tully _bastard_ on our fine women! Where is your real sister then, _king_ in the north? Do you have her hidden away, or do you not even have her at all?”

“Are you too blind to not recognise the _Hound_ outside this chamber door? The Lannister’s faithful pet? Do you think he came this far empty-handed? He saved my… my brother when that inbred little troll was going to have her killed!” Robb hissed.

“Lothar, should we not should send a raven to Lord Walder and-” a very red-faced and lanky Frey was clearly extending himself beyond what he was comfortable with, but was rewarded only with a contemptuous “Shut up!” from his leader.

“So the dog got to keep the real girl as a prize?” Lothar continued, eyes so narrowed it would be a surprise if he could see. “If we’d known you wanted only the ugliest sons of bitches for your sisters to wed, we’d have done our best to mangle ourselves!” Some of his companions laughed hollowly at this, while others appeared uneased.

There was still opportunity here, Sansa could see. If only Lothar Frey could be calmed before he and Robb took their tempers too far-

“You think I’d give my sister to a _Clegane_?” The northern king gracelessly slapped the table in rage, tipping cups and spilling wine. “The Hound could have slain Joffrey’s entire army and galloped to my camp astride a unicorn, holding aloft the bastard’s head, and I still wouldn’t have subjected my sister to wed him!” The men around the table scoffed, and one spat, but none noticed the brittle glare levelled by the sweet-faced boy at his alleged brother.

“Pfah! None can trust a word you say. They say the Lannisters pay their debts. We should have heeded _their_ words! You’ve lost an ally today, false king, and you’ll lose your war as well!” Walder’s son flicked his wrist, and his companions stood obediently. Robb’s men all immediately rose as well, everyone with hands on hilts or pommels.

“It would please me greatly if you and your companions would stay here a while and discuss this matter further,” Robb ground out between clenched teeth, “My uncle Edmure, soon lord of Riverrun, is also without a wife.” This had been their planned-upon second offer if Sansa was refused. However, after the quick descent into slurs and shouting, this proposal sounded more like mockery.

Lothar turned and departed the room without a further word.

“We will bring to our father what you have told us today,” the red-complexioned Frey mumbled while hedging to the door, a not uncourageous attempt at pretending the last several minutes hadn’t happened.

Expressions of manly fearlessness and cocky goading were exchanged like copious farewells. The sheer spectacle of seeing so many highborn lords behave without even the pretence of courtesy was otherworldly. But Sansa then understood with a terrifying shiver that this party had come close to bloodshed, and lips sealed shut were all that prevented it.

As soon as the Freys had departed the room Robb started snapping orders, dictating raven messages and demanding this man or that map and someone to straighten his chair up.

Sansa slipped out of the room, unnoticed. It looked like a very long argument was about to start amongst a number of men with their blood raised, and he really couldn’t bear to witness it. Though his mother was already wading into the fray, despite being in disgrace. It seemed she had more stones than Sansa did, even now he actually, well, had some.

Clegane still stood unwavering at the frame of the door, the first sight to see as it opened. That must have done much to quell the Frey’s wish for violence.

Utterly uncaring of who saw or what was appropriate, Sansa caught the Hound’s eyes and then flicked his head down the hallway, beginning to walk in that same direction. Clegane’s face screwed up in irritation but he quickly followed, surely noticed but unremarked, as even the men-at-arms and knights were astir with tension.

Sansa led them to his brother’s solar in silence, though he could swear the Hound’s footsteps were heavier than usual, his armor clanking more loudly.

“You heard everything said in there, did you not?” Sansa asked without preamble as soon as the door was closed.

“I did,” Clegane nodded. “Probably half the keep did. They were yelling like brawling squires.”

Sansa huffed. “My brother is a fool,” he shook his head. “The Freys did not need to disbelieve us to reject my hand, I realize that now. Robb looks at me as a brother. He sees a girl made into a strange boy but he still loves me.”

He sucked in a deep breath. Sometimes it seemed his lungs filled better now than they had before. “But he only needs _love_ me like a brother. Everyone else, they see a woman turned into a man and they can no longer love me as either sort. They see a _freak_. And they are right,” he sat down as daintily as he could against the weight of this realization.

“Aye, who could look on a freakish thing with love?” The Hound rasped angrily. Sansa’s head flicked up. Surely he had not imagined Sandor’s tone just then was _accusatory_.

“A wound is not unnatural!” He snapped. “Even to be born crippled is known in nature, my body is not!”

“Your body is _beautiful_ , Sansa! And that’s all people care for, all people see! Your brother shamed the Freys, and they aren’t the sort to forgive, nor forget. Lord Tywin has slaughtered entire households for less! Perhaps they did come today to begrudgingly accept some lesser compensation, but they looked to me about as easily appeased as Joffrey in his little moods.”

Sansa shuddered at this comparison, knowing all too well that some men’s bloodlust could never be slaked.

“Your pretty face offering to wed their sisters – hah! Probably sisters far less beautiful than you – shocked them too deeply to disguise their contempt. Do you imagine men who respected your brother would say such to him even if they thought you repulsive?” Clegane reasoned, but Sansa was not sure. A king was owed courtesy, but maybe the fault _did_ lie in Sansa.

“I doubt they will settle for anything now but a Frey child on the Northern throne, as was first promised. If you had been a woman still they may have taken you, but only so they could make that child. Then your brother would be one poisoned goblet or assassin’s knife away from crowning a Frey king,” Sandor spat these words with honest fury, and despite the gravity of the situation, Sansa wondered if it was from imagining him a girl still, and at the mercy of cruel men once more. He quickly dismissed his heart’s follies to focus on the Hound’s words.

“Do they have no love for their lord at all, to do so to his daughter’s children? If the Freys are so wretched why did Lord Hoster not keep them in check, or turn their hearts? My lord father always told us a high lord must ensure peace in his lands,” he knew better now that not all lords were noble, but his mother was so gentle a lady, her father must surely be a kind man.

“You still believe most lords were as your father? They are just men, Sansa, men with the power to take what they want, and most of them use it just so,” he snatched at the air before him and made a tight fist to reinforce his meaning. Lord Hoster’s daughters had made great marriages… and not for love.

“If nothing else your brother should remember there is a lady Lannister wedded to a Frey, and the Twins may be a factor that decides victory for your brother. They may be a house none care for, but they hold power now, and they know it.”

“Will you advise my brother with these words? It is him who needs hear them,” Sansa complained.

“Why would he listen to me, a Lannister dog? A second son of a minor house? A _Clegane_ ,” Sandor retorted, laughing bitterly. Laughing at himself. “He barely believes what I tell him of the Lannisters, let alone his own family’s bannermen.”

“Your value doesn’t lie only in what you were born as,” Sansa kindly reminded him. He drew in breath and wished he could draw in courage just as easily. “But I understand. I will go to him. It may be he heeds me no more than he would you, but I can try. I must try.” Although he was still gulping down humiliation and dismay, he would not stew over his insults as he once would have. He would find a way to speak to Robb as soon as he could, and convince him not to treat with the Freys again.

“If you think my counsel good then listen to me now,” Sandor said, stepping closer to stand before him and clasping Sansa’s slender shoulders in his oversize palms. Sansa let his own hands rest on that broad chest. “Your brother’s already perilous war just became thornier. You may be old enough to stay and fight but in body you are still as weak as a boy. He named you his heir in that room, did he not? Ask him to send you to wherever is most safe.”

Sansa shook his head, a tiny ember of unease sparking in him that Clegane wanted him sent away.

“We thought our brothers safe at Winterfell,” he said mournfully. “It is more important for him to cease placating enemies that will never love him, I do not wish to distract his mind from that,” he affirmed. “Besides, if I depart, will he expect you to stay and fight in his campaign?”

“He’d be a fool not to,” the Hound declared without pride. Sansa could not bear to look upon his face.

“If you go to war, I want to come with you,” he declared. “The gods made me a man for a reason.”

Clegane did not laugh at him, as Sansa feared he might.

“The reason wasn’t that, if there was one at all. You don’t understand battle, little bird, and I mean not just because you are unpractised. There’s no anger in your heart, no thirst for blood or glory.” His rough fingers caressed Sansa’s cheek. “I’d spend more time protecting you than I did killing the enemy,” he smiled, and his smile was so ugly, but it was also so, so beautiful.

“I can’t be your wife like this,” Sansa sighed, “but I would stay with you for as long as you are content.”

“You couldn’t be my wife in any case, little bird. Didn’t you hear your brother?” Sandor barked more harsh laughter.

Sansa struggled for a reply, frustration and sadness welling up in him, but Sandor was quicker.

“He’s a good man, and a good brother, to refuse his sister to anyone he suspected might be like _Ser_ Gregor, never mind what favour they did him.”

“Sandor…,” Sansa was overcome, eyes hot and throat tight.

“Even if it’s not a Frey or other glum bitch, they _will_ expect you to take a wife, as his new heir,” he chided.

“Some poor girl given to me to secure her family’s standing?” He scoffed. “She would probably be grateful I didn’t ask her to my bed.” He hoped Sandor would understand his true intent. Perhaps if… “Will you take a wife?” He asked nervously.

Clegane rubbed his stubbled chin as if in deep thought. “Hmmm, perhaps if they find some poxy wench terrible enough to deserve that,” he volunteered.

Sansa turned from him abruptly. The Hound’s rough laughter and gentle arms pulled him back.

“I’ve not expected a wife, nor sons,” his voice grew quieter, scratchier. “I didn’t expect anything for the longest time.”

Sansa turned around within his embrace.

“That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve it,” he whispered. “I would not deny you children.”

Sandor held him tighter. “Let’s just see what the future brings, aye?” He asked, nuzzling Sansa’s ear.

“Will we see it together?” He asked, his own nose crushed against Sandor’s chest.

“Aye.”


	16. Bonus Round!: Sandor “The Hound” Clegane vs. Catelyn “The Cat” Stark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Sandor POV was asked for and I have delivered.

 

For the past several weeks, Sandor Clegane had stepped out of the real world and into one from a book of songs; complete with magic, perilous escapes, bedding a high lord’s daughter, battles, the threat of dungeons, and a stomach-curdling amount of introspection, much of it without _wine_.

In short, his life had gone from miserable to truly fucking terrible.

He was bloody glad to see the back of the Freys at least, who were a revolting lot. And by the gods, if anyone knew revolting, it was the Hound. He’d written the introduction to the book about it. Or at least he’d been asked to, but was entirely too busy being a degenerate drunkard, and told them to fuck off.

Of course it was a stupid hope the little bird would take his advice and ask the boy-king to send her away from the fighting. But he’d still thought bleeding better of her than to take time at this critical moment to wring her brother even tighter on the matter of a _closer_ guard.

When she’d told Sandor with bright eyes that Robb not only had listened sagely to her thoughts on the Freys, but was also considering for true appointing him as her sworn shield, he’d burst a fucking blood vessel with the exertion of not yelling at the adorable dimwit. Was she purposely being contrary?

Sandor was going to end up the cockless one between them if the things he did to _innocent_ Sansa were ever found out. And that wouldn’t even be the worst part of going to the Wall, in his estimation.

He wasn’t sure they even had much wine there.

It was with this doom in mind that he strode to the apartments of Riverrun’s lord. Its new lord, the old one having finally fucking died a couple days ago. Edmure still hadn’t fully vacated his previous rooms, mourning his father’s loss or some shit but really, the world hadn’t lost much in the death of Hoster Tully.

Sandor wished he was going to see the new Lord Tully, whose spine was as floppy as the fish on his surcoat, and who found it difficult to look the Hound in the eye.

Instead he had been summoned to speak with his sister, Lady Catelyn Stark.

This was probably something to do with Sansa’s campaign to make their crimes against nature blatantly conspicuous. By making Sandor her shield, she was ensuring he had no escape from her frighteningly effective seduction techniques, such as asking.

The little bird’s mother already despised him, probably for proving far better at protecting her daughter than anyone related to them by blood. At least the prude didn’t suspect anything else.

Well, that’s what he’d hoped anyway.

Upon being admitted to the lord’s solar, he found Lady Stark waiting for him behind an imposing desk. It appeared to have been originally built as a barricade, and then had several successive artisans attempt to improve it with fish-related engravings and shell inlays. It was truly hideous. And if anyone knew hideous, it was the Hound.

Lady Catelyn did not ask him to sit.

“Clegane,” she said by way of greeting with a brief nod of her head.

“Lady Stark,” he replied, giving a perfunctory bow.

“My son tells me he is considering appointing you as Sansa’s shield. He claims she does not feel safe after the disturbing display by the Freys, and has suggested _you_ are the finest candidate for the task.”

“Yes, that’s true,” he grudgingly admitted.

“Which part?” Lady Stark all but snapped.

“All of it?” He ventured, raising his eyebrow. “Though given your family’s recent problems, surely this fresh incident wasn’t necessary to know she’s under threat,” he reasoned. Catelyn pursed her already thin lips.

“I am well aware of that,” she retorted, standing and walking around behind the ancestral Tully chair, which was as grotesque as the ancestral Tully table. She held it for support, and like a shield between herself and her terrible foe. “I am not aware why either of my children thinks you a suitable choice for this role,” she remarked coldly.

“Because I’m the best sword your son has,” Sandor humbly informed her, “And I have already _successfully_ kept Sansa from harm,” yes a definite twitch in her cheek there, “at great personal cost to myself, I might add.” He hadn’t really needed to add it, but he enjoyed watching her face go pale while her cheeks went red with indignation.

“Yes, that is a point which concerns me,” she said stiffly. “There appears to be no compelling motive for you to serve my family as… enthusiastically as you have undertaken.” There was some accusation coming, but he’d already fielded so many of them he could practically recite his replies in his sleep. He settled back on his heels and waited to see if this one was A Fiendish Lannister Plot, or perhaps Upstart Second Son Seeking His Fame. Actually this lady with her love for proper lineage was probably keen to take up You Were Simply Born A Vicious Cur, which could be bloody good fun.

But as the silence wore on he realized she was expecting _he_ would start the proceedings. He wasn’t that fucking dim. He’d already packed most of his gear for the upcoming march to whatever northern shithole the Ironborn were cowering in, and he didn’t intend to waste that effort by being sent away now.

“If I am to take your word at face value that you find the northern king a more agreeable regent than the southern one, and I don’t, but even if I did I must impress a certain _understanding_ on you,” she spoke slowly, swimming upstream against a topic Sandor decided he might just have an inkling about.

“I will be blunt,” she said gravely. “When your affects were searched, my son’s men found a _very_ copious quantity of fine and sweet oil,” Lady Catelyn stated, with the tone and force of an accusation of murdering someone and eating the corpse.

“And? I have leather and mail that needs oiling just like every other bugger in this war,” Sandor deadpanned, cursing the fucking nosy sow in his head. Even the vain knight of bleeding flowers wouldn’t waste olive oil as sweet and costly as the shit he had on saddles and steel. Oh but the Tyrell lad was probably _quite_ familiar with its every other benefit and use.

“Mmm, so you say, yet from the state of things your equipment seems no better oiled than most soldiers’ I have seen,” the lady noted.

“Well, clearly I’m not very good at it then. Got to make up for that lack of talent somehow,” Clegane countered.

The silent glare between the two would have decapitated anyone foolish enough to walk in the middle of them.

“Returning my daughter to me is a debt I cannot repay,” Catelyn finally continued, with the most threatening gratitude Sandor had witnessed since the old lion Tywin. “Even if not in the same state she left me.” She sniffed derisively as though Sandor’s incompetence had caused this oversight.

_Maybe it had. But bugger me if I’m going to waste sympathy on your sentiments, you old fish._

“A debt that can’t be repaid for a ransom that wasn’t requested, how opportune,” he laughed, all the harder knowing how terrible his laughter sounded, and hoping that disturbed her.

“Make no mistake that delivering my children from one peril does not make me any more merciful if another peril is visited in its place,” She was hissing now. Sandor didn’t know what went on in this dreary crabapple’s marriage bed, but he hadn’t done a damn thing to Sansa that didn’t happen daily in most provinces of the realm.

And if Dorne was included, there was nothing he could even imagine doing to the little bird that those buggers weren’t already doing to each other, he was sure. Very oiled-up people, those Dornish.

“I have no intention of putting your daughter or son into _peril_ ,” the Hound barked. Well, maybe some moral peril. But that was just how you could tell you’d had a really good night.

“Regardless of what _you_ intend, I _assure_ you that men who do not understand their duty, or who willingly wallow in depravity are not fit for my family’s service,” she declared icily.

“Oh? A _noble_ heart and a limp sword-grip are the requirements for safeguarding your family? That says much,” he snapped. The lady gripped the back of the chair so hard he could _hear_ her nails sinking into the fucking wood.

“How _dare_ you? After all I have suffered? _How dare you?_ ” She warbled, a singer like her daughter, but not any tune Sandor wished to hear.

“Ah, is withholding the ugly, honest truth also a requirement of _fitness_ for your service?” He drove remorselessly into this exposed weakness. “Which safety of your daughter do you prefer? Her honor or her _life_? Because I won’t talk of what I can’t do, but I tell no lie when I say there’s not a man alive who can keep her from harm better than me.”

“Your kind aren’t even fit to be called men,” Catelyn’s tone was cold enough to _burn_ whatever it touched. She took her skirts in hand and swept from the room like a blizzard bearing across the horizon.

His _kind_? Hardly fit to be called men? How was that even in question, for _him_? Did his name carry _no_ fucking weight here?

Sandor left the room with as much determination as the Lady Stark. If that woman thought he could be shamed off like a thieving dog she was more than a buggering fool, she was a madwoman.

He found the training yard promptly and immediately sought out the quartermaster for a practice sword. The heaviest they had.

 

* * *

 

 

Sandor normally found it tiresome to keep his gaze from wandering to Sansa during the evening meal, that he was (as he was repeatedly reminded) privileged to attend, instead of eating with the servants. Yes, usually he _would_ have struggled not to look at the little bird, but tonight he was far too occupied with fighting a duel of menacing glares with the bird’s mother.

If her reaction earlier in the dinner had been any indication, no-one had bothered to inform the _delicate_ Lady Catelyn of the afternoon’s events before she discovered it as a mealtime topic. He knew it was him they were talking about, because the motion Lord Edmure made to demonstrate how the Hound had made some little shit almost bite his own lip off was remarkably accurate.

Everyone looked rather displeased with the situation, but it was Lady Catelyn’s grimace of barely restrained rage that was the expression he’d been waiting for hours to see. It was utterly worth the trouble it took to beat every single bastard that had taken up his challenge in the yard. Many of them at the same time.

 _If I’m not fit to be called a man, pray tell me what the entirety of your son’s army are_. He didn’t even attempt to keep the smugness from his sneer. He had maintained a face of cold malice to anyone else who dared to glance his way, even though he ached liked a team of aurochs had run over him. And was eating his food through the taste of his own fucking blood.

Catelyn had clearly tried to avoid looking at him, but one slip and that was it; the war of evil looks was on, neither willing to be the first to look away.

 _I don’t think you’re half as good at lying to yourself as your pretty daughter,_ he mocked in his mind. _At least it’ll be on your head if you choose an inferior man to guard one of your few **precious** remaining children._

And Sansa _was_ the only precious thing in this godawful world. If they gave the role of defending her to some other bugger, Sandor wasn’t sure what he would do to ease out that rage. Probably no-one would take him on in practice until the more gruesome injuries he’d inflicted today had healed. He wanted sorely to see how the pretty little lord in question had taken the news, but that would mean being the first to break.

An hour or so and a few stale tankards of ale later, Sandor’s victory looked assured as Lady Catelyn was urged to go to bed by her royal son for the third time. His lack of having people who gave a shit if he slept in his own bed or in a puddle on the floor was a distinct advantage here. One that imparted the same sense of confidence as the weight of a hidden dirk.

Some daft bastard had put their hand on his shoulder. He’d have given them a meal of their own teeth if his joints hadn’t mutinied against his conscious control.

“Sandor,” a small voice said behind him. His head turned round at exactly the same instant he realized he’d lost.

But he would crawl out of his own grave if Lord Sansa Stark called him, and any defeat that gave him an eyeful of that sweet face was a good defeat indeed.

Even if it did currently wear a small frown and a concerned wrinkle between her eyebrows.

“Sandor what went on today in the yard?” She asked gently, looking over him, taking in the splits and cuts over his face, and the swelling which had not gone down despite a cold, wet rag held against it until suppertime.

“Well, there was a disagreement about my suitability as your shield,” he confided. Sansa took this news as he hoped, becoming shiny-eyed and eager at the prospect of furthering her goal. But then she dimmed again, concern pinching her mouth tight.

“Uncle was saying you took off some man’s hand,” Sansa stressed, squeezing the flesh of Sandor’s half-numb palm exactly like a wee bunny clutching a morsel of food. Hopefully they would find some rabbits on the march north. Those little buggers were delicious.

“No, just the use of his hand. He still has it, it’s just… a bit shattered,” he objected. Sansa didn’t look much mollified.

“My brother seemed more upset than impressed,” she ventured. “Though no-one can doubt your exceptional prowess now.”

“Wasn’t for your brother’s sake,” he shrugged. In response to this his shoulder informed him it only had about ten minutes of movement left before it would stiffen hard as rock. The hot bath he’d doused in had not buggering helped.

“Who was this to convince then?” She asked crossly. Sandor was weighing up how to tell her he’d gotten into a pissing contest with her mother when there was a sudden uproar of hollering, shouting, screaming and hooting.

He had Sansa over his shoulder by the time he’d stood to get a clearer view of the situation.

People were running _away_ from the hall, so the danger was elsewhere at present. Excellent. He drew his sword, all previously screaming joints now well-greased with the anticipation of battle.

“Lord Sansa!” A frantic knight dashed up to him, addressing his parcel. “Your mother and brother require you in the lord’s chambers at once! You must hurry, my lord!” He beckoned them to follow. Sandor tarried a few paces behind but kept his stride equal to their harried guide.

“I can walk, you know,” Sansa fretted somewhere near his shoulder blade.

“Aye, and I can sing, but no-one fucking wants me to,” he barked, earning the desired silence. A whole lot of busybodies were gathered in the halls of the lord’s apartments, though they parted for the Hound easily enough.

He plopped Sansa down onto her feet and then barged into the solar without knocking. They had been urgently summoned, after all.

Three dirty boys were on display amidst the Tullys, Starks, and a few assorted knights and guards and oglers whom no-one had bothered to dismiss.

“Oh my darling, my baby, oh Arya, you gave me such a terrible fright!” Lady Catelyn was kneeling like a septa, kissing the smallest child on the head between her distraught words, stroking him so thoroughly it looked like she was trying to scrub him clean by hand. “For a moment I thought you were truly a boy as well now, oh but you’re alive, I couldn’t care as long as you’re alive!”

Clegane squinted. It did look like Ned’s other daughter. The annoying one. Sansa made a gurgle of delight and dashed forward, sliding to the floor alongside her sister as a mirror of her lady mother.

“Arya!” She cried, entirely unheeded.

“I’m not a _boy_ , mother!” the creature squawked. “I just dressed as one because of Yoren. No-one could know who I was so I was Arry. They took us to Harrenhal, they had us all as captives there, but then I had a dream, about Sansa, and the Hound was chasing her, and I needed to chase him down instead and rip his throat out, and then Jaqen helped us escape, and then Nymeria found me, she came to help me eat the Hound, and then we had to run from some bandits, and then we had to stop at the inn because Hotpie got ill, and then-“

Abruptly, the capering demon child ceased its frantic movement and gaped at him. Not an uncommon reaction, really, but this little hobgoblin was hardly one to point fingers.

Which it did, directly at the Hound’s face.

“ ** _You!_** ”

“What about me?” He snarled. Heavens forbid he would get to stop being the center of attention for five fucking minutes.

“The Hound! It’s the Hound!” She shrieked. When the men around her did not leap into action she surveyed them all with the open-mouthed shock of betrayal. “He killed Mycah! My friend Mycah! He killed him but Mycah was innocent!” Her pointing hand of accusation suddenly held a knife, barely as long as one of Sandor’s fingers. He scoffed as she sprang forward to gut him. Robb and Sansa each grabbed one of her arms and held her tight.

“It wasn’t Sandor’s fault, Arya!” Sansa protested, getting an flailing hand in the face as retort.

“Clegane is one of my men-at-arms now, Arya! He saved your sister! He’s serving the north!” Robb had better success in calming the hellion, but she still wasn’t finished yet.

“You did it! Admit you killed him!” Arya howled. Sandor glowered at her. This was probably the final straw that was going to have him sent packing. He’d have to watch the little bird walk away after he had only just gotten a brief taste of her. Or him. Whatever.

“Aye, I cut that boy in two with a single stroke,” he barked. Sansa gasped and covered her face. “And that was a mercy. It would have gone far worse for him if I’d brought him back alive,” he growled, “Joffrey liked to torture his victims.”

The little bird warbled a note of despair, and he had a stab of acute shame at reminding her of that Lannister-spawned shit.

“Like your brother?” The small girl screamed. “He and his men were _torturing_ the villagers at Harrenhal, for nothing, for… for fun!” Her skin was possibly flushed red under the many layers of filth, but her eyes were unmistakably clear and lucid. _Seven hells, this girl’d had a run in with Gregor?_ There wasn’t a bloody consolation he could give for an experience like that…

“Aye,” he spat, jabbing his thumb towards his own mangled face, “like my _brother_.”

The birdie keened with shock and pity. It was amazing no-one had started following her around with a harp and troupe of dancers, mistaking her for a singer.

Allegedly-Arya had gone silent, her eyes still wide and searching, looking at his face with no less revulsion, but a shrewd new understanding. He could feel everyone else’s gaze on him too, itchy like bandages on freshly healing skin…

“You still…,” she wavered, the righteous fury almost extinguished, scooping up the remaining ashes to sling in his face out of spite, “You still served the Lannisters, and you knew they were monsters!”

Sandor flung his arm wide, gesturing at Robb’s guards and out the window, where the courtyard of Riverrun still held the dwindling crowds heading to bed.

“D’you think your brothers men _chose_ to serve him out of all the lords in this realm? Or d’you think they’re here because they were _born_ to it? When two addle-brained fools decide to make a baby, it’s the lord of the land they fucked on that babe is obliged to serve!” He thundered.

“ _You will never speak that way in front of my daughters!_ ” Catelyn Stark rose as an opposing stormbank, with enough indignation to make up for the fact neither of her oh-so-precious daughters had even blinked an eye at his fucking language.

“I hate you!” Arya howled. There, that was reassuring. She’d run out of special reasons to despise him and returned to the standard contempt he was used to dealing with.

“I don’t care,” he told her bluntly, and the little bitch leapt right onto him and bit him on the arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Oh, hey, yeah, I’ve got a delivery of ‘Good Intentions’ brand hell pavers? Made out to one Catelyn Stark? Sign here, please.”


	17. The Stranger Watches Over Us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been long enough that I'll treat my readers to another sex chapter before slathering on more plot. Short but sweet.

The march north had not been very pleasant.

Sansa had a responsibility now to represent his house well, and thus he had to ride a horse with the other men. He hadn’t known it at the time, but Sandor had set a very gentle pace on their journey from Maidenpool to Riverrun. This march was brutal; as fast as the road and horses allowed in case the Lannister army turned north again, and there weren’t breaks to stretch your legs or pick wildflowers.

Well, he’d only picked flowers once! Sandor had snorted upon seeing Sansa’s flower crown, and then Sansa’s horse had snorted and eaten it. He didn’t much miss that horse. His new one was bold but careful, and Sansa had named him Aegis.

At least they had tents on this trip, and furs and linens. But no-one to snuggle with, which somehow made the nights colder. Sansa sighed wistfully. Sandor rode with the vanguard, and they almost never got to see each other. He couldn’t even talk about him much, because it always lead to a fight with Arya, and he hated fighting with Arya now. His mother also glowered whenever Sandor was mentioned.

The offensive on Moat Cailin began tomorrow, and though Sandor was a fierce fighter, Sansa was too familiar with loss to be confident. Robb had promised him that the Hound would be his after the North was retaken, and Sansa was only the _tiniest_ bit guilty at how horrified his brother would be if he knew what effect those words had on him. But first Sandor had to live that long!

His insecurity drove him to desperate measures. The last minute preparations meant everyone was bustling from one task to the next and nobody had time to mind anyone else’s business. So Sansa was able to move through the train unescorted and unquestioned.

Sandor’s tent was easily identified by the horse tied to it. Apparently he didn’t get along with the other horses. Or humans, as there was a noticeably wider gap between Clegane’s tent and all the others.

And that gave him an idea.

Instead of looking further for the Hound to share some whispered assurances, he hedged towards the nasty beast, slow and careful.

Sansa wondered if it had finally grown used to his presence, or if even horses could be too tired to bother with caring, as it did little more than flick its ears and harrumph as he ducked into the tent. It was really quite dismal inside, all Sandor’s gear grouped at the far end of the tent and a thin bedroll in between.   

He lay himself down on it, snuffling up the Hound’s lingering scent unrepentantly. Falling asleep and waking up to this smell was something he sorely missed. Clegane’s tent felt very private, despite a much more pronounced din of soldiers going about their business. Thankfully they all collectively drowned each other out, so no-one’s individual cursing or crude jokes were discernible.

Sansa had his own tent and didn’t have to share with his mother and sister, because it wouldn’t have been proper any longer, his mother had said. But that didn’t stop either of them from paying him unannounced visits, so he never felt truly secluded.

The sense of security and enjoyable smell had him almost dozing on the bedroll, so when the tent flap was finally tossed open he peeped girlishly in alarm. Clegane held his shock better. In fact, he wore the same face of controlled surprise he’d had when he found Sansa in his room.

Sansa tried to act more confident and coy, and less like a blushing maid. Which was difficult when Sandor’s expression changed to a toothy grin.

“You can’t keep surprising an old man like this. My heart could fail me,” he rasped quietly as he moved inside, crawling up over Sansa with dangerous grace.

“Nonsense, you aren’t that old,” he laughed in reply. “And… I’ll take care of your heart for you,” he blushed, and blushed even harder as Clegane began to remove his own tunic.

“You’re a bit young to be a maester,” Sandor objected playfully.

“Not at all, let me show you my qualifications,” he smiled, crawling out from between the Hound’s legs and beginning to disrobe. He’d only meant to ask for kisses, but they’d been separated too long for him to ignore the clear invitation. Sandor helped him tug his breeches off, and then yanked him down underneath him again without warning. Sansa rolled onto his side, and then onto his stomach, driven by a desire to be… provocative.

“Oh, you have no idea what you’re doing,” the Hound snarled as he descended onto him.

Sansa was utterly trapped under the much, much bigger man, but only to the point that his breath was shallow; not even close to where it would be removed altogether. It was not truly objectionable.

“It was already killing me to have only your gentle hands and timid little tongue,” his voice rasped into Sansa’s tender ear. “But I haven’t touched you in an age, and now you’re going to play like this? I want to be _inside_ you, Sansa. I want to feel you with my hips.” So saying, he rolled his pelvis into Sansa’s, a terribly strong movement that brought terribly strong feelings.

Clegane rose up onto his elbows, as if to give more space, but it only pushed Sansa’s tummy down further onto the blankets, onto his own growing arousal.

“But I can’t ask that of you. Am I so bloody scornful of everything you’ve already allowed?” He mumbled bitterly, almost to himself. Sansa raised his head as far as he could under Clegane’s weight; pressed his cheek just below Sandor’s throat.

“There’s nothing I would deny you,” he said timidly, only half sure it was true, and miserably unable to keep the quaver from his voice, though at least that he could blame on being squashed.

Sandor lowered himself back down, giving some relief to Sansa’s hindquarters, but once more trapping him under immovable muscle.

“Don’t say that. You shouldn’t say that,” Clegane moaned, placing wet kisses onto Sansa’s neck. “It’s only in fucking songs that men have the honor to refuse what’s freely offered,” he rumbled, his breath hot, his arms almost imperceptibly shaking.

Sansa was trembling himself; it must have been nerves. The Hound began stroking up his sides in broad, warm strokes. It was calming, until those hands began travelling over his back, and then lower. He was touched firmly but gently, his flesh pinched with delicious inappropriateness.

But then Sandor flipped him over, and nipped the still soft but now somewhat barren flesh over Sansa’s nipples with his teeth. It gave him an enjoyable jolt, and he wondered if he should return the favour. Before he could decide, they were kissing, and Sandor reached between them to grasp Sansa where he was already hard as a swordhilt.

Sansa would readily admit his ignorance, but this didn’t seem to be how it should go. At least, he couldn’t make sense of it. It occurred to him that, despite Clegane’s words, he had at every step withheld himself until persuaded. And always repaid what he was given…

“I won’t… I won’t ask it of you in return, if that’s what troubles you,” Sansa hurried to mention. The idea was just… no, too foreign. Although it was perhaps shameful, Sansa enjoyed that Sandor treated him like a woman. No, not even like a woman. He didn’t require Sansa to _pretend_ he was something he no longer was. Sandor treated him as though it didn’t ultimately matter much.

To everyone else, Sansa the woman had to be a lady, and Sansa the man had to be a lord.

But in Sandor’s bed, he was just Sansa, and he could be any part of himself he wanted. Or all of them. Or none of them.

The man in question huffed.

“Well, you’ll have a wife someday, won’t you? Mayhaps you’ll get lucky, and she’ll be a pretty little thing like you,” his face was almost morose as he said this, although he kept planting kisses on Sansa, not willing to stop.

Sansa giggled and pulled Sandor’s head down flush to his own, having no courage to speak his next words above a whisper.

“You sound jealous,” he tittered, and the Hound replied with a muffled growl. “Hmm, I think you should only worry if the lady I’m made to marry ends up being… tall,” he cooed into Sandor’s ear, “And… strong. And fierce-“ Another growl, this one deeper and vibrating into Sansa’s blood. “And… bad-tempered!”

“What?” Clegane barked, lifting his head enough to look Sansa in the eye. “What’s that supposed to mean, eh?”

“And rude!” Sansa laughed.

“It’s a fight you want, is it then?” Sandor declared, and Sansa almost squealed as those big paws began crawling all over him.

“Tickling is dishonorable!” he barely managed to squeak out while battling for his life.

“Is it?” Clegane asked incredulously, “I’ll be sure to cut down any bastard that tries it on you then!”

“No! Stop!” Sansa cried, his vitality almost expended.

“Anything m’lord wants,” the Hound rumbled into Sansa’s neck, scooping him up tight as the shivers from the fiendish onslaught eked out of his body.

“Anything?” Sansa asked finally, still a little breathless.

“Hmm?” Sandor replied, face hidden in red hair.

“Anything I want?” He whispered to a half-ear that was entirely more delightful than most whole ears.

“Of course,” the gruff muttering answered him.

“I want you to enjoy me,” even if the words trembled out of him, they were honest.

Sandor’s sharp intake of breath made him weigh down even heavier on the man below him.

“Not all men return from battle, and…” there were unshed tears hiding in Sansa’s quiet voice.

“Then hold it over me as a promise, to force me to come back.”

Sandor caught Sansa’s sob with his mouth, and their talking was done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahahaha I lied! The sex is all off-screen! But I promise I'll make it up to you later...


	18. Sansa Has a Bad Day. And Also Lots of People Die, I Suppose.

 

Dacey Mormont was a proud and fierce woman, and she was particularly proud of how fiercely she fought alongside the young wolf, King Robb.

But it could not be overlooked that she was, indeed, a woman, and thus when Sansa suggested he and Arya could use not only a guard for the duration of the battle but also one who could further their education in defending themselves, the she-bear was immediately chosen for the role. Dacey seemed more insulted than honoured by this appointment, but she was good at keeping her words sweet whenever Lady Catelyn was around.

Privately, she and Arya spent much time discussing how foolish it was to leave them out of the fight, and the best way to gut an Ironborn like a fish, and boasting about all the men they’d killed.

Sansa was fairly sure most of Arya’s stories were lies.

He had to think that.

Otherwise he was now both less of a lady than Arya _and_ less of a warrior.

He was so slow and his grip so poor that as they practiced that morning his little sister ran rings around him, and although Dacey tried to scold Arya for hitting harder and more often than she ought, Sansa didn’t feel he was learning anything except how to take a beating.

And Joffrey had already taught him that.

He had long harboured hopes of Sandor tutoring him; his slender wrists, hips and shoulders engulfed in a comforting and sure grip that would move him this way and that. A solid wall of masculinity to dash himself against in vain…

He shook his head to clear it of lascivious images. He should know by now he couldn’t get everything he wanted. Sandor had not only been charged with a number of new duties, but also seemed reluctant to discuss the matter at all. If Sansa had to convince him he was capable, it would have to be by taking the reins himself.

Which was how he’d ended up barely holding his ground against Arya, struggling against the inevitable and shameful moment he would have to yield. Fortunately, for all her mannish strengths, Dacey still had a woman’s keen eye for suffering, and declared a new arrangement.

Arya seemed to possess the almost magical ability to find other dirty little children, and several of these new friends of hers had been watching them stumble about in the mud, assumedly because watching the real battle held real risks.

“You boys want to learn to fight?” Dacey belted at them, holding up her fists to rouse them.

“I do!” One lad immediately answered, raising an arm in return.

“What’s your name?” Dacey asked, reclaiming the fighting stick Arya had used.

“Ebert,” he declared.

“Ebert, _my lady_ ,” Sansa corrected him gently. “Dacey is a daughter of Lady Mormont.”

“My lady,” Ebert repeated, but not even looking at Dacey as he said it, his attention fully held by the stick he now held.

“You can begin learning how to parry with Lord Sansa,” the lady said with a merciful lack of condescension. She spent a moment correcting his grip and showing him how to stand, advising the other children to watch closely.

“Try to strike your opponent, but only to tap them. To begin with you should be as quick as you can, not waste your strength on being forceful.”

Sansa was relieved to discover that although Ebert was still striking probably harder than he should, his blows were possible to parry and dodge, unlike Arya’s.

“Don’t just move your sword when he’s already swinging at you! Anticipate his movements! Parry him as he’s making the cut!” Dacey yelled instructions in rapid succession, which Sansa struggled to keep up with. Paying attention to her instead of Ebert always lead to a poking with the stick.

It wasn’t long before Arya became bored and demanded Dacey spar with her, and then Sansa was left to figure things out on his own, which wasn’t so terrible considering how his training had started.

Ebert’s friends also demanded to take part, swapping as Sansa’s partner every time he scored a blow against the current stick-bearer.

The swaps were not that frequent.

One of the children had a permanently runny nose, which made it especially hard for Sansa to guess his intentions, because it was quite difficult to look at his face. That weakness was made up for by the ire that filled Sansa and gave him a maddened strength whenever the boy gave another revoltingly wet sniffle or wiped his nose on his already encrusted sleeve. He was not surprised to learn this boy’s name was apparently ‘Dribby’, or at least that’s what the other boys called him.

The third time he faced Dribby in combat, the child made such a nauseating sound it turned Sansa’s stomach, and he cracked his stick into the boy’s shoulder much harder than he should have.

Dribby began to howl, his crying taking his nose from dripping to overflowing.

“Aah, eurgh,” Sansa turned away, struggling not to heave. Arya already had enough to laugh at him over. The boys he was with were far more easily amused, mocking his delicate reaction and pretending to vomit themselves. He straightened his spine, steadfast. He was a man.

And a lord. He fished a handkerchief out of his pocket, not a very nice one, as he’d expected to perhaps stain it with blood or dirt today, and handed it to Dribby while averting his eyes.

“I’m sorry for hurting you,” he offered, “Here, use this for your nose.”

“Ohhh, a lady’s token!” The sole girl who was part of the dirty-faced group bleated.

“I’m not a lady,” Sansa said sternly. Dribby pressed the cloth to his nose and patted his face ineffectually. Sansa’s eye twitched. He had tried to be gracious, but he drew the line at teaching this boy how to blow his nose.

“Me da says you were a girl last year, but this year you’re a boy,” Ebert suddenly volunteered, looking extremely dubious about the idea.

“That’s right,” Sansa nodded. “I was born a lady, but then a… a spell was put on me, and now I am a man,” he declared, placing a hand over his heart.

“You still look like a girl,” Dribby declared, and snorted again. Sansa winced. Was it really so hard…?

“Well I’m not a girl,” was the cleverest reply he could come up with, and waved his stick a little for emphasis.

“You look ‘un,” Ebert agreed with his gross little friend. Sansa scowled at them.

“Well I’m not,” he said sternly. “Now pick up his stick. It’s your turn.” It probably wasn’t, but Ebert had been the most vicious with his blows, and Sansa didn’t feel so bad about returning them in kind.

“Prove it,” Ebert demanded.

“Prove what?” Sansa was confused.

“Prove you’re not a girl,” Dribby cried, capering and snorting.

“Ugh, you’re so disgusting!” Sansa snapped before he could stop himself. He was sore, and filthy, and had been humiliated enough for one day. “I don’t need to prove anything to you!”

Dribby was shocked, as though the concept of his unpleasantness had never occurred to him before. But Ebert’s eyes glinted, seeing an opportunity in Sansa’s outburst.

“I know how to prove if she’s a girl or ain’t,” he chortled.

Sansa lost his patience and raised his stick to smack Ebert on the head. If he didn’t block in time, that was just his own fault.

But, as always, he was too slow.

Ebert reared back and kicked Sansa right between the legs.

 

* * *

 

 

“Oh Sansa, I’m so proud of you,” his mother’s voice was as soothing as the hand she brushed over his brow and cheek with. “I know it’s not fair you’ve been thrown right in, never getting the chance to… understand these kinds of things, how boys squabble and play rough.”

Sansa let out another distressed moan, though much _less_ distressed then all his previous ones.

“This is exactly the sort of affair that made the Lannisters demand the life of your sweet Lady, isn’t it?” Catelyn continued. “And yet you have proved nobler and gentler than Queen Cersei could ever be.”

Sansa hiccoughed, nodding his head as it rested in his mother’s lap.

“Your brother is torn between a hundred different demands, and for you to handle this on your own, as your own man, assists him as surely as if you were fighting with him today.”

They were kind words, and Sansa mostly believed them. But it was only a salve on the wound of his humiliation, barely numbing the pain.

“They all laughed at me,” he whined for probably the eighth time in as many minutes.

“Walk back with your head held high and your words gentle, but with newfound vigilance, and they will have nothing to scoff at,” her voice was like the wind through tree branches. Sansa had forgotten that, how it calmed and enveloped him when he was upset.

It had been so long since he’d had true comfort for his distresses.

“My lady is right,” Dacey volunteered. She had been mostly silent and nervous after bringing Sansa to his mother, trying to give a level-headed opinion of what happened in the face of Catelyn’s initial horror at seeing one of her children weeping and retching. “A true warrior fights nobly and honorably, but he is also ever aware of the opportunities a disgraceful foe may take. If you return to the field calm and cautious, they will gain a new respect for you,” she explained.

“I never want to see them again,” Sansa mumbled into Catelyn’s now-damp skirts. “I can’t… I wasn’t… it’s not because they hurt me, mother, it’s not that. It was just like Joffrey. Just like when he made his kingsguard tear off my dress and everyone saw and scorned me and…,” he buried his head for a renewed bout of sobbing.

“That vile bastard will never lay hands on you again Sansa, I swear it by the gods,” his mother told him with steely determination.

“Why do people torment me? Do I invite it somehow? Do I earn it?” Sansa moaned. To be truthful, the pain and nausea had long since passed, but the shock lingered still, unnerving him. He had never imagined he could feel so vulnerable and disrespected among his own people.

“No!” Dacey insisted, echoed by his mother and sister. “Boys, and even some men, will pounce on any target weaker than they.” Arya agreed enthusiastically.

“If anything, your gentleness may be mistaken for weakness, but do not make the same error!” His lady mother counselled him. “A gentle heart is not a weak one, and those who believe it is so will learn otherwise.”

“I’ll remember, mother,” he said softly. But he also remembered his father’s gentleness for his daughters, and what it came to, as more silent tears made their way down his cheeks.

“You should remain with us for the night,” Catelyn declared. “In case you become sick again.” Sansa was fairly confident that wouldn’t happen, but he wouldn’t turn away the chance to hug his mother for longer.

Dacey excused herself discreetly and Sansa removed his belt and shoes, and then after some contemplation, his tunic that was slightly soiled with vomit.

“Hey,” Arya whispered to him as he placed his effects in a neat pile by the tent door. “What they did, I mean, and who it was, too... you aren’t going to tell the Hound, are you?” She muttered with true concern.

Sansa eyed her sharply. He wondered if she would fret so if the tables were turned. But eventually he shook his head.

“No, it’s not important… he probably wouldn’t even care,” he huffed. This was the sort of thing men did, he supposed. Picked on each other. His brothers had done so all the time, though they’d never strike one another to hurt them.

“Well I don’t care if you think he’d care, but don’t tell him!” Arya insisted.

“I said so didn’t I?” He hissed. Sandor’s sympathy was usually abrasive and jocular, and Sansa was sure his words would be the same as his mother’s and Dacey’s. Women had time to suffer; men must protect.

But, right now, he didn’t feel like a man. And he didn’t want to be one any longer.

He couldn’t fight or even just defend himself, let alone others. He would probably never be able to secure a marriage to help his family, and… and Sandor was loath to lie with him. Of course he was, it was probably a paltry imitation of the genuine act. Something you “made do” with, like a whore’s mouth.

 _I don’t want to be a man anymore_ , he cried to the gods, keeping his tears silent so his family could sleep. _Please let me be a woman again. I don’t need to be like this now. I need to be a woman._

_Please don’t let this suffering be my fate._


	19. You Must Kill the Girl to Let the Man Be Born?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another of those dreadful plot chapters. It's very thoughtless of Robb to have a war going on.

When Sansa woke the next morning he was alone in bed. He must have been truly exhausted to not stir as the others arose. To be truthful, he still felt wretchedly tired and sore. Sore! That’s right, he’d fought, and those boys, and then he’d prayed… for the first time in a while he groped himself hopefully.

No.

Nothing had changed in the night.

He squeezed his suddenly stinging eyes tightly closed, and pulled the now excess blankets over himself, wishing to be buried so thoroughly no-one would ever find him. He remembered belatedly there had been a battle the previous day, and perhaps his brother’s men had been thrown back and defeated. Maybe some had fallen… maybe Sandor…

Not only the furs and blankets weighed heavily on him, however. Even though the sun shone brightly enough to pierce the thick canvas, an invisible gloom lingered over Sansa’s heart. To rise… to face the day… face the truth…

He had imagined that he could become a man like his father if he took to it with determination to do good and the will to be honorable and kind. But it was not so.

And before yesterday, fighting with Dacey and Arya, he could have even believed that his failure as a man was due to some innate womanly nature he still possessed. But that was not so either, they proved it. There was nothing in a woman, it seemed, that prevented them being manlike. It made him seriously ponder if there was anything in men than prevented them from being womanly. Or if all was people playing their roles, fixing their masks tighter and tighter until they were their true faces.

But no matter the reality of it, the fault for his latest incompetence lay in Sansa alone. Just as it had been when he loved and trusted the golden Lannisters and led his father to his execution. He had no greatness as either sex; his lot was a mediocre stumble through life, inadequate for every responsibility he faced.

He sighed heavily as he heard the rustle of someone entering the tent.

“Sansa!” His mother’s voice was quiet, but excited. At least Robb wasn’t dead then. “Wake up. Your brother has arrived back from the castle, they were victorious… get up and see him.” She gently shook the apparently sleeping boy, and Sansa knew he could hide no longer.

Fortunately his mother hurried off as soon as he rose, and could not scold him for carrying a grim face despite Robb’s victory. _A victory the likes of which I will never be part of_. He smoothed his hair as best as he could from its dishevelment and went to put on his shoes and tunic. The soiled one had been replaced, by a clean one he hadn’t seen before. It looked rather too big, but he didn’t care.

A small party was milling about the nearest campfire, made up mostly of dirty, armored men. None was a head taller than the others.

“Sansa! Good morning, pillowhead!” Robb greeted him warmly as he approached. Sansa smiled dutifully and returned the greeting, inquiring quickly how the previous night had gone.

“The battle went well. Lord Reed’s men were right about the sewer, and none of the Ironborn seemed to know of it, or know we knew,” Robb laughed. “Messiest battle I’ve ever fought, and not from blood.”

“Robb!” Their mother said reproachfully, but he and Arya both laughed. Sansa wrinkled his nose in agreement with their mother.

“And how did your own fighting go?” The young king asked Arya and Sansa brightly; the manic brightness of too little sleep but too much energy.

His mother and sister turned to look at Sansa wordlessly, as though awaiting his judgement.

“Very well,” he finally said, stiffly. “I learned much.” That was true at least, unfortunately. His mother looked relieved but Arya smiled, the rat.

Sansa wanted to ask about Sandor so, so very desperately it was like a physical compulsion. But the Hound had warned him not to needlessly speak his name, lest it raise the suspicion of his family. Sansa doubted his family could ever suspect the truth of things; doubted they even knew such things could happen.

But if Sandor lived, they needed the discretion. And if he were dead, well, to know tomorrow instead of today would not make the pain any worse.  Still he found himself biting back the man’s name every minute.

Surprisingly, the gods favored him in this desire where they had so recently scorned his others.

“Did you kill _all_ the Ironborn?” Arya asked, with vicious tone and macabre smile. Their mother’s eyebrows creased together, but she said nothing.

“No,” Robb sighed. “Hostages will be useful, perhaps we can get those in other castles to surrender without further bloodshed. We only have a couple left alive though. The _Hound_ kept killing them past when he should have stopped,” he muttered. Sansa gasped before he even understood what they were talking about, just from the mention of his name.

“After they surrendered?” Lady Catelyn asked sharply, and Sansa did not think it was from concern for the fate of Theon’s people.

“No, no, they hadn’t yet surrendered, but only because he didn’t give them the chance, I believe,” Robb shook his head, looking away as though seeing something in his mind’s eye. Sansa shivered to think it might be men being cut down.

“Good. They all deserve to die,” Arya said definitively.

“These ones didn’t kill Bran and Rickon,” Sansa murmured. He wasn’t sure what prompted him to say it, except that between his sister and the Hound, there was too much bloodlust already. Not every man who served a cruel master was cruel. Sandor should have known that best of all.

“No, and they have been quite sedate in their captivity. I would have thought men who were treacherous against such overwhelming odds would fight harder for freedom.”

“Don’t allow yourself to imagine they won’t do the same again if given the chance,” Lady Catelyn warned, and Robb nodded with resignation at her words.

“Well, I have much to do before I can take a much-needed rest,” Robb sighed. “We won’t be tarrying here long, but you should all go ahead to the Keep. They are preparing rooms for you there. Oh, and before I forget!” He turned to Sansa and gave a wilted smile. “Find Ser Dwey, he should be near the supply wagons, tell him I sent you to be outfitted in armor, leather most likely, whatever he has available now.”

Sansa nodded obediently and committed the man’s name to memory. He should have refused, admitted arming him was futile, but at least maintaining a mask of capable manhood was useful to his family. Though he felt it was odd to be armored _after_ a battle and not before. It was too suspicious to go looking for Clegane first thing he did, so he went to see this Dwey instead.

 

* * *

 

 Sansa paced restlessly across his temporary new room, which was small enough that he could only take three steps before having to turn around to take the next three. He practically bounced off one wall onto the other. It was tiring, but also serving well the purpose of preventing him from thinking.

His agitated solitude was interrupted by a firm, thudding knock on the door, followed by an “Oy, Sansa,” from a voice that even _sounded_ unwashed.

“What is it, Arya?” He asked as he opened the door. He was surprised to see not one, but two girls. Both, unfortunately, familiar.

“Hello,” he said tersely to his sister’s companion, the girl from the yard yesterday. The girl whose stupid comment had sparked his public disgrace. She looked far more meek and respectful, standing here in a castle doorway, holding the hand of a high lord’s daughter.

“Hello m’lord,” she replied, curtseying abysmally.

“Clare’s brother died,” Arya announced without further delay. “They were harrying the walls to keep the Ironborn distracted and he got arrowed.”

Sansa winced, both at the image that conjured in his mind, and that Arya spoke so baldly in front of the dead man’s sister. She didn’t obscure her reason for coming to Sansa either. “She doesn’t have anyone to take care of her now. She only came with the army because she didn’t have anyone else. Now he’s dead and I tried to get them to take her on with the cooks like they took Hot Pie, but they won’t listen to me and Robb is too busy…”

Sansa shifted uncomfortably. He wasn’t sure how, but this smelled like trouble. That was Arya’s speciality.

“Why don’t you ask mother to speak to them?” Although, now he thought about it, perhaps nobody would listen to Lady Stark either right now, as she was out of the king’s favor.

“Mother asks too many questions,” Arya stated bluntly, making Sansa more suspicious.

“She just needs somewhere to stay until Robb has time for his sisters again,” Arya scrunched up her face. “Some men said they would help her but…,” her eyes narrowed, looked up into the distance pensively, “I don’t trust them.”

Sansa shivered. He didn’t know who the men were, but he didn’t trust them either. Clare wasn’t much older than Arya, but he knew that didn’t matter much...

“So you want her to stay with me?” He balked. His room might be his own but it was tiny. He’d be stepping over her like a rug. Arya nodded enthusiastically.

“You know mother won’t let her stay with us… I’ll bring her food, you just need to let her sleep here.” It sounded simple, which unnerved him. The girl hadn’t looked at him directly since Arya started listing off her miseries. Sansa hoped she was sorry for yesterday.

“Alright,” he conceded grudgingly. He hoped Clare wouldn’t use the opportunity to steal from him. Not that he had any pretty things to steal anymore. “Just until Robb can see to her, mind.”

“Or you could talk to them!” Arya suggested brightly, as though since she’d had one concession, she might as well go for a second. “You’re the heir and a prince, they’d listen to you.”

Sansa wasn’t so confident about that, but it was a chance he didn’t have to share his rooms with a stranger.

“Let’s go then. Take me to whoever you need to talk to,” he stepped out into the corridor with them, creaking slightly in his new armor. Well, not new really, was it? Yet another detail he had been trying to avoid thinking about; the horror that overtook him when he realised the armor they matched him up with had bloodstains.

Most likely from its previous owner.

Who didn’t need it anymore.

Maybe it had belonged to this brother of Clare’s. He didn’t think about it.

“Did’ja know the Hound is in the infirmary?” Arya blurted out of nowhere as they found their way through unfamiliar hallways. Sansa stopped dead for a moment. _No wonder I couldn’t find him._

“No,” he breathed, then remembered himself. “For… what reason?” He asked, continuing on as casually as he could.

“Blow to the head, I heard,” Arya shrugged. "Apparently that's why some Ironborn survived."

“Fine of you to wait until now to tell me,” he hissed. “And yet you come begging my help!” He would have spun on his heel and gone right back to his rooms if it weren’t for Clare’s morose expression.

“I had to find out from someone too,” Arya scoffed. Sansa was thinking up a retort when he realized the sound of accompanying footsteps was gone. He looked back to see Arya gesturing to Clare, who nodded and then watched owlishly as Arya approached Sansa alone.

“Listen, if you help me, I’ll cover for you. You can go visit the Hound and I’ll tell everyone you were with me,” Arya suggested in a whisper as she came close enough.

“What makes you think I want to go visit Clegane?” Sansa breathed back, feigning indifferent confusion quite well, he thought. Arya gave him a piercing look.

“When Nymeria found me, and we were trying to track you and the Hound…,” she bit her lip and squinted her eyes a little. “I wouldn’t think you’d believe me except for… well, you know, you’re magic now too.”

Sansa blinked. He… supposed it was magic that had happened to him. What was Arya trying to say?

“When I was asleep, I would dream I was Nymeria. I could smell and see what she did… run through the forest and hunt animals… she’d bring the animals to us to eat, but I still wasn’t sure they weren’t just dreams, that even you and the Hound weren’t a dream,” she shook her head slowly, oddly grave for such a young child. “Until I arrived here and saw _him_. I thought you were his captive but…” Arya’s eyes slid to the side, and a crackling heat began to spread up Sansa’s spine to the crown of his head.

Fear.

“Doesn’t he… like girls?” Arya asked, quiet again, entirely too shrewdly.

“He… I… How should I know such a thing?” Sansa’s tongue was garbling his words, trying to speak two at a time. His previous disaffection was in tatters, and Sansa wondered if Nymeria could _smell_ lies, if Arya could smell then now also. His sister leaned even closer to him, lowered her voice even more.

“If he upsets you, I can kill him. Nobody will ever know it was me,” she breathed barely louder than the breeze.

He should have laughed at the idea that little Arya could kill a towering Clegane, but nothing could have been amusing in that moment.

“You won’t… please, Arya,” he wheezed, gasping for air. “Don’t tell anyone. Please, you can’t!” He was sweating. Sweating like he’d been running in the sun. He could feel it dripping all down his skin, and absorbing the chill from the air. His tummy roiled, threatening to empty its contents. It would serve Arya right to be vomited all over if she told mother or Robb.

He _loved_ Arya, he wanted to love her forever, but if she told… if she did something…

“Well, I won’t tell, if you help me!” Arya declared quietly, surprisingly unconcerned about Sansa’s distress. That made him wonder if she truly _did_ know what he had imagined she did. _Of course she doesn’t_ , he scoffed to himself. _She’s still a child._ _Whatever she knows, it isn’t much._

Still enough to hang a man, possibly.

Sansa nodded, pulling himself back together. Arya beckoned Clare, who scuttled up to them, curious but mute. Sansa let Arya lead from that point, too shaken to keep pretending he was heading their little procession.

They wound their way through swarms of busy people. Arya dodged and swerved through the crowds like a fish in water, and Clare seemed to know best how to keep from being under anyone’s feet. Sansa was left to hurry after them, murmuring apologies and greetings as he tried to keep up.

Eventually the general stink gave way to the smells of cooking meats and bread, and Sansa wondered if they were feeding Sandor properly. Arya abruptly grabbed his arm.

“There, that’s him, Round Rusell, he’s in charge of all the cooks and butchers and everything in Robb’s army,” she told Sansa while pointing to the man in question.

She probably hadn’t needed to.

Round Rusell was indeed _round_ , fatter than King Robert. But he strode around as though he were a warrior himself, and everyone noticeably got out of his way. He had a rather large blade in his belt where another man would have a sword, but it was clearly a carving knife, weathered by long use. Sansa wished he’d brought a dagger or something to give himself more gravity. He decided to pretend he had one, and full armor, and was as tall as Clegane.

“Good day, Rusell, may I have a moment of your time?” He called out, walking confidently to interrupt the man’s inspection of a basket of roots he was being shown by a skinny boy. “I am told you are a man of high significance for the supply of my brother’s troops,” he continued, not bothering to wait for an affirmation, nor to introduce himself. The Hound never introduced himself.

“Aye, that’s right,” Rusell replied, just short of a rude snap. He eyed Sansa up and down, noting his long red hair, then grimaced when he spotted Arya at his heels. “Can I help you, m’lord?” He asked somewhat reluctantly.

“Yes, we are bringing this girl here,” he gave a slight indication in Clare’s direction, “to work in Winterfell’s kitchens, as we may well be short of hands after the Ironborn’s treachery. But she is as yet untrained. It is wasteful to wait until we reach the North to put her to work. I am charging you to make a place for her amongst your labourers and teach her what she will need to know for the scullery,” So saying he took Clare by the shoulders and pushed her forward gently but solidly, so she stood right in front of Rusell’s ample stomach. The man eyed her like he had the basket of roots.

“Of course, m’lord,” he said after a moment, nodding his head respectfully. “You!” he turned to the boy that still awaited judgement for his basket. “Take her to Agnes, tell her the girl’s gotta be made good to work in a king’s kitchen,” he instructed him. “And tell Terri those parsnips are only fit for stew.” He waved dismissively at the children. “Will that be all, m’lord?” He inquired far more politely of Sansa.

“Yes, thank you, Rusell,” Sansa said pleasantly but firmly, and walked away without further tarrying.

“That was excellent!” Arya told him when they were a fair distance away. “Where did you learn to do that? Whenever I tell them to do anything they always ask ‘Does the king know about this?’ or say they don’t want any part of my mischief!” She sounded indignant, but privately Sansa could understand their reactions.

“Cersei Lannister never asked people anything, she always told them, and she always got what she wanted,” he said distastefully, remembering the last time he had seen the Queen she had mocked him and made him serve the wine. “But then, she is a queen.”

“Well, you’re a prince,” Arya noted. “And princes can become kings so… I suppose people won’t want to cross you,” she laughed a little, probably at the thought of Sansa being a king. It _was_ a ludicrous notion, and a terrifying one.

But maybe he could handle being a prince, if he could make it work _for_ him as it had with Round Rusell, instead of against him. Perhaps, unlike as a lady, he should no longer ask people what they wanted of him. Perhaps, he should tell them what they were going to get.


	20. When It Rains, It Pours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I struggled with this chapter, and struggle makes me lazy! But here we are with this installment, better late than never!

Sansa was sure Sandor would stand out unmistakeably against a room of wounded men, but when he entered the makeshift infirmary tents he could see no sign of the Hound. It did nothing to soothe his already tumultuous stomach.

“Already gone,” an assistant to the Maester asked him when he nonchalantly inquired. “Got the ear cut off his dog helm, but only scraped him a little. Head wounds bleed much worse than they are,” he informed Sansa with the air of solemn knowledge he had gained only in the last few days.

“Oh, I had heard he was injured,” Sansa exhaled with blessed relief.

“Nah, we just cleaning up everyone who bled, cos of all the shit an’ mud,” the man said, spoiling Sansa’s attempt at pretending the place didn’t smell like it did.

He was already feeling much better about forgoing the glory of battle.

But he was supremely frustrated that he’d missed Clegane. It was getting dark, and he’d be expected for supper shortly, and even as a man he wasn’t keen on going through the camp town at night. _No matter, no matter… he’s probably still very weary and needs his rest_ , Sansa decided. Or perhaps he’d turn up at dinner? Not likely, he had to concede, given the hall here was small and the number of lords and their retainers present was large.

Nevertheless, dinner was well under way before Sansa finally admitted to himself that Sandor was not going to make an appearance. His acceptance of this was shamefully prompted along by the difficulty of keeping an eye on a hall full of boisterous men without making it obvious he was doing any such thing, while simultaneously keeping up with the discussions taking place at the high table.

While it was mostly fairly dull talk about equipment, casualties, tactics and the other monotonous details of planning the movement of thousands of men, this was exactly what Sansa was now eager to learn about and absorb himself in.

So much of what was said flew above his head like a partridge startled from the bush, gone too fast to grasp it. At least there were a few more light-hearted topics to ease his frustration.

“Actually today brought another surprise, though not one you may like to hear,” Robb laughed cheekily as he addressed his sisters, almost a carefree brother again. “We got word from Lord Frey! Accepting the marriage alliance with you that his sons rejected,” Robb’s smile assured Sansa he was not taking the offer seriously, but he couldn’t help a shiver. “And with Edmure. _And_ with Arya. We haven’t sent word abroad that we found her, so it’s obvious the message is spreading on its own,” he grimaced.

“Can you imagine?” Lady Catelyn gasped in shock. “After everything Lothar did and said, Lord Walder has the nerve to request all three marriage pacts be fulfilled?” She grit her teeth, probably at the mere thought of having so many Frey relatives.

“Good thing he did say what he did,” Robb shrugged, “No offense, Sansa,” he quickly followed it up with. Sansa wasn’t sure if he was offended or not.

“It gives us better grace to delay answering, if we bother to answer at all,” Robb’s mood changed sharply, and he stabbed the duck leg off his trencher. Sansa breathed a sigh of relief that his brother seemed to be heeding his advice to be cautious with Lord Walder.

“I am _not_ marrying a Frey!” Arya did not hesitate to inform everyone of her opinion, loudly, to the embarrassment of their mother, who quickly shushed her. Well, _those_ words would probably spread on their own too.

“No good news, then?” Sansa asked to deflect the attention from his sister. Robb sighed deeply, entirely back to being a king.

“Not at all, on the contrary, the Lannisters have moved a little north again, toward the Riverlands, but not quite passing the borders yet. A clear provocation to make us turn back or split our forces, but we don’t believe they have the strength yet to make a serious move. It worries me though,” he frowned, his eyebrows creasing together, and Sansa could immediately see that he would wrinkle there, between his eyes, as their father had, giving him a look of constant austerity and graveness. His heart ached to see a reminder of his father, but ached also that such reminders at least still existed for his family.

“I meant to ask you Robb, not if it causes you more trouble but only if it lessens it…,” Sansa began, unsure. He had meant to wait for a moment alone with his brother, but the king being the king, those were few and far between these days. He would have to swallow his pride and speak in front of everyone. “I have accepted that I will never serve you well by fighting in your army,” he managed to say without obvious self-pity nor reproach, “but I believe I can assist you well in other capacities, that are maybe less valorous but… no less critical. You know I paid attention well to all my lessons as a child, and I have a keen eye and ear to learn more. If it please you, can you tell me who to best instruct me in matters of strategy or provisions or diplomacy… especially if there is some role you think filled best by one with unquestioning loyalty to you.” There. He had spoken his piece.

Robb’s face was a mixture that proved tricky to interpret. What that shadow of concern over his eyes doubt for Sansa’s competence? Or his trustworthiness? Finally, after a torturous few moments, Robb nodded in agreement.

“That sounds prudent, Sansa,” he said. “You need brave men to lead armies, but clever and careful ones to organize them, and you’ve always been clever,” he smiled, and Sansa blushed at the sweetness of his compliment.

“In fact,” Robb continued, “I think I have just the task in mind…”

 

* * *

  

When Sansa awoke the following morning, it was only half as light as it should be. Thick, brooding clouds obscured the sun and heralded the arrival of icy cold rain. He waited a few hours after breaking his fast to see if the storm would relent, but it was not to be so.

He had to brave it; his patience for seeing Sandor again was wearing thin, despite what the maester’s assistant had said. Arya had run off and wasn’t to be found, which was good – if no-one knew where she was, they couldn’t deny Sansa had been with her. His cloak was thin, and would not withstand the rain well, but to borrow another would be suspicious, and besides… Sandor had given him this cloak.

That thought gave him the warmth he needed to hurry through the sleeting rain, out of the castle grounds and into the tent city beyond. Rather than sheltering from the deluge, a huge number of people were stamping around in it, and it seemed as though there was enough commotion that Sansa would go completely unnoticed. The heavy rains had washed away the well-trodden dirt where many men had set up camp, and people were digging ditches, bailing water, salvaging goods and doing an awful lot of swearing.

It didn’t seem that Clegane was amongst them, but Sansa didn’t want to get underfoot in order to find out for sure. He determined to repeat his previous success by simply finding the Hound’s horse, which would eventually lead to the Hound finding him.

The black warhorse was tied to a tree near the crest of a small hillock, sheltering himself a little from the rain. But only a little, as though it wouldn’t be done to be seen letting it bother him. His flattened ears warned Sansa not to underestimate him, so it was with great care that he slowly untied the flaps of the tent. At least this was not in danger of washing away, with the tree roots supporting the ground. Although the Hound was not so important as to receive rooms in the castle or abandoned towers nearby, among the soldiers he was significant.

The Hound was also at this moment asleep, heedless to the troubles that afflicted the camp. Sansa scurried inside and hurriedly re-tied the tent shut, so as to not let more rain and cold wind into Sandor’s warm bedding. His fingers were chilled into fumbling, and he was close to cursing this fraying canvas that was like trying to tie twigs together-

-something grabbed his arm, covered his face and mouth-

“What’re you doing here, all soaked and shaking?” Sandor slurred into Sansa’s ear, his voice that of someone who had just awoken, but his grip suggesting he was very alert.

“I came to see you,” Sansa peeped. “Don’t get your clothes wet against mine,” he fussed, trying to push Sandor back.

“Take them off then,” the Hound told him, and began pulling at Sansa’s cloak.

“I heard you were wounded but you were absent from the maester’s care when I sought you there,” Sansa explained, noticing ruefully that the loss of his sodden cloak made no difference in warming him. Even in here, it was bitterly cold.

“I didn’t need the maester,” Clegane replied shortly.

Sansa pursed his lips. “I looked for you elsewhere as well, but you weren’t be found,” he complained, hoping Sandor was not sore with him for not acknowledging him after the battle.

“I didn’t need to be found,” the Hound said firmly. Sansa narrowed his eyes. So he was going to be difficult? There were too many things Sansa wanted to say to him to have patience for some little game. They were neither of them women – things should be spoken plainly between them. He determined to press on and do exactly that, turning back to the entrance to take off his muddy boots.

“You may be pleased to hear I have decided to give up my grand dreams of being a soldier or knight as great as my brothers,” he made the confession he was sure would please the Hound.

“A knight? Your brothers aren't knights!”

Sansa hadn’t meant to say that part, but Sandor yelped at him with less vitriol than he would have expected. Instead he seemed almost… flustered…

“Well... no, they aren’t, but Bran always dreamed of it…” he made himself cut that line of thought short. “Anyway,” he sighed, “I recognized it's foolish of me to try and follow that path. Everything ‘proper’ and ‘correct’ I have ever done seems to have ended in disappointment and tears, so I shall stop doing them and see if that’s any different.” He tried to smile through the burdens that still lay on his heart to speak of the past.

Sandor smiled back at him, just a little, the slightest curve of his remaining lip, so there must have been some true happiness on Sansa’s face.

“Besides, I did many of those things because I wanted to please people, to be good. I always believed if I were good to others, they would be good to me in return… but, well, you were one who helped me see the world doesn’t actually work that way,” he was tight-lipped, trying to be sensible and practical, but the bitterness he still felt over this truth did not leave him so easily.

Clegane shifted uncomfortably.

“So you’ve given up trying to make people happy, have you? For the best, little bird, and that’s the truth,” he grumbled, sounding a little off-put. There was a moment of awkward silence, and then Sandor looked up at Sansa with guarded eyes that glinted in the low light. “I won’t hold you to doing anything just to please me neither, then. Or I’d be as good as a liar,” he declared warily. “Don’t fret about what we spoke of before. A lot of men say things and make promises before they go to face the Stranger that they don’t really mean. And you’re one of us, now, aye?” He smiled, a true smile, but resigned, and Sansa suddenly understood what he was talking about.

“Oh, no, I didn't mean that. That's different,” he blushed a little and looked away, but smiled. Maybe he had been thinking about that a little too as he set out to meet Clegane... maybe he used some of the precious scented soap of Lady Glover’s when he bathed this morning... Just in case.  
  
“Is it?" Sandor asked, squinting at him. Well, one eye was squinting. The other didn't seem to be able to, which just made him look really quite funny.  
  
"Of course," Sansa tittered. "You know that."  
  
Clegane gave him a look that said he knew no such thing, which raised Sansa’s ire for some reason.

“I don’t understand you sometimes,” he huffed, feeling a bit petulant. A bit girlish. He wondered suddenly if Sandor would like to see him wearing a dress again.

“Well that goes double for me,” the Hound barked a laugh. “If you weren’t just begging off having to fuck me, what were you trying to say?”

“Exactly what it sounded like! I was telling you about how things have _changed_ , what’s been… what I’ve been doing to be useful!” He was possibly screeching, but too indignant to temper himself. “It’s not always about you!”

The Hound looked down, contrite for the first time Sansa had ever witnessed.

“Aye, you’re right,” he mumbled, glancing up at Sansa mournfully with his eyebrows all twisted up, just looking exactly like a chastened dog. Sansa sighed. A face like that was impossible to stay mad at.

“I won’t go back on my word,” he peeped, looking down at his hands fiddling with the blankets. Clegane shifted towards him slightly.

“Now?” He rumbled after a moment’s hesitation.

Sansa peeped again, unintelligibly. 

Neither said a word for a while, both apparently waiting for some sign from the other. Sansa could feel himself swell just at the thought… though he didn’t even know what he was to think of, not really. Only that it would be Sandor and it would be inside him and it was filthy and shameful and he couldn’t help but already like it a little.

Thankfully the Hound was the first to break the silence. He moved forward, and Sansa had nowhere else to go besides to crouch down as Sandor loomed over him. His nerves might have shown on his face; one of Sandor’s hands began to smooth over him, from shoulder to hip, with a warm and weighty reassurance.

“No need for shaking, little bird,” Sandor’s voice became huskier as he quietened it.

“I’m… not shaking,” Sansa protested, but then he realized he _was_ , just a little.

Clegane rose up onto his haunches and pulled Sansa along with him, raising him high enough to slowly being peeling off his stickily wet clothes. _That’s why I’m shaking_ , he decided, almost quivering with cold after being disrobed. Sandor took off his own tunic and then, after a moment’s pause, tugged it down over Sansa’s head. It fit him like a robe, but was warm and dry and… infused with Clegane’s scent. He lay himself down on the pallet, both soothed and spurred into expectation.

“How d’you want to do it, little bird?” Sandor asked him softly, almost hesitantly.

“What do you mean?” Sansa replied, too confused to ponder questions properly.

“On your back? Or side, or knees? However you’d like, or we can just try a bit of everything,” Clegane said with tremulous… hope, his hands slipping under the tunic’s fabric, squeezing the soft inner flesh of Sansa’s thigh.

“Perhaps we should… I should lie on my back then, just like…,” he closed his eyes as if he could hide from his own words, “Just like I were a woman.”

“Oh, you’re wrong, little bird,” Sandor continued, running his hands up and down Sansa’s legs and speaking almost more to himself. “A woman can do it a hundred ways as well, and any man lucky enough to have you would have done each and every one to you,” he punctuated this by squeezing languidly and firmly the flesh of Sansa’s bottom.

Sansa knew he was already blushing but this declaration made his face fight fiercely with his manhood for any available blood to rush to it. Seeing this just made the Hound grin, as he gently pulled Sansa forward so his rump sat on Sandor’s lap, even while still lying down. His legs were pushed back to fold over the top of him. It made him feel a little more vulnerable than anything they’d done before.

“You’re even panting like a little trapped bird,” the Hound rumbled, running his hand under the tunic to place it on Sansa’s breastbone, a thumb on one nipple and his smallest finger on the other, so broad was his handspan.

“I just… feel so ashamed,” he mewled, holding onto Clegane’s solid arms to anchor him.

“Ashamed? Why should you feel ashamed? If anyone, it should be me. And I’m not. So there’s little and less reason for you to worry about it,” he murmured, the grating of his voice somehow a comfort instead of an irritant.

Sansa couldn’t fault his reasoning, least of all right now, so he swallowed down the parts of him that wanted to protest his indignity. Sandor’s attention flicked to something else; he leant so far forward that Sansa would have tumbled backwards if the other man’s weight hadn’t pinned him. He was too surprised to struggle, let alone protest, but it was only a minute of Sandor fumbling around with something behind Sansa’s head, and then he was let down again.

“Got something we’ll need,” Clegane grated, and Sansa heard the slosh of liquid and looked up to see a small vial of something being poured into Sandor’s hand.

Sansa lay with false calmness, pressing his thighs together as they hung above him to give a semblance of modesty. It only had the effect of shocking him more severely when warm, slick flesh touched his own. He jumped a little and parted his legs again, feeling Sandor’s fingers trail from his inner thigh across his most tender parts.

Oil on skin was always a strange sensation, but here and now, it was an almost otherworldly experience. Sandor had touched him here many times before, but it had never felt quite like this. Smooth and hot, pulling an extra edge of intensity out of every motion.

Sansa kept his passivity even as his manhood was stroked in gentle but firm sweeps, and then lower, directly between his legs. He couldn’t help but gasp and shiver at how vivid a feeling it invoked in him, despite being not anything at all, as far as Sansa could tell. And then lower again, lower, and this time the noise he made wasn’t of pleasure but sheer humiliation.

Sandor’s hand paused in its journey. Sansa bit his lip and made a new sound of assent. He didn’t really want to stop. Well, a small part of him did, but a much larger part wanted to discover all it could, despite the risks to his dignity.

“It’s vital that you stay calm and relax, little bird,” Clegane rasped quietly. “Stop thinking about how ashamed you are and just… stop feeling anything but this.” His other hand, supporting Sansa’s thigh in its bent position, began squeezing reassuringly.

Sansa imagined the tension was steadily wrung from him with each squeeze of Sandor’s hand, like a sodden cloth was purged of water. The image worked surprisingly well, and he felt his body go slack. The serenity was shattered as something entered him, one of the Hound’s fingers, he realized, as he tensed up all over again.

“Relax,” was repeated, and Sansa closed his eyes, and did as he was bid. Another finger entered him, and he made himself blow all his tension out with each breath. It was… it was odd. Where at first his body had plainly resisted and resented the intrusion, it now began to relent. Sansa would never have guessed it could be so.

A little more, and then he was feeling what it was to be touched _inside_ himself, and oh, oh! He couldn’t help but give a moan as his half-swollen length flexed in response.

“Are you alright? Do you want me to stop?” Sandor asked, his hand immediately stilled.

“No, it’s… it’s strangely… nice. Don’t stop,” Sansa begged, relinquishing to the urges of his body. He could admit he was largely ignorant of carnal things, but he was fairly sure that _this_ , of all things, should not feel so good.

“Relax.”

It was much more difficult to obey now that he wanted to please himself as well as Sandor. But he could tell easily the difference when his body presented resistance, compared to when it yielded.

“Do you think you’re ready?” Clegane asked him after a little while, his voice slightly betraying eagerness. Sansa had no way of knowing if he was or not, but he didn’t want to disappoint Sandor.

“I’ll try,” he twittered nervously, sucking in a breath as Sandor’s fingers were removed from him and then a hand placed on either side of his hips. Firmly but tenderly, Clegane lifted Sansa’s legs up even further, until only the upper part of his back was still on the ground, and his feet swayed aimlessly up in the air.

Although he held Sansa steadily, Clegane was slightly shivering.

“Are you cold?” Sansa huffed, thinking about how nice it would be to do this encased in furs and blankets, instead of a dismal little tent.

“No,” Sandor murmured, “I just… you can’t imagine how long I’ve wanted this for.”

Sansa tried to relax further, his legs going even slacker, his knees falling down almost to his shoulders.

The Hound took one hand off Sansa’s hip to grapple with something nearby, and then Sansa felt soft material – a bunched-up blanket, perhaps – pushed underneath him to maintain his tenuous position. It certainly helped reassure him, and he relaxed once again, without even realizing he had become tense. He heard a faint, wet noise.

“What’s that?” He asked, unable to angle his head in any way to see much of anything.

“Just making sure there’s a bloody lot of this oil… on me and you, both,” Sandor rasped, giving Sansa a heavy look. His legs twitched involuntarily, and then a warm hardness was pressed between them. _Relax, relax, relax_. It was much larger than Sandor’s fingers.

But it wasn’t much worse. In fact, as long as he remembered to keep calming himself with every movement Sandor made, instead of tensing, it entered surprisingly easy. It was an amazing feeling, having something _inside_ him. It entered, then withdrew, then entered again, and each time a little further than the last.

Tiny embers of excitement ran through him, but without ever kindling into a proper fire, and he had the sudden urge to take himself in hand. He couldn’t, no, no, he didn’t even know if Sandor was enjoying it at all…

“Is it… good?” Sansa huffed, finding it difficult to concentrate on both talking and keeping himself calm.

“More than anything,” the Hound groaned, and Sansa took a good look at his face, and _that_ destroyed all his efforts at serenity. He thought they’d only just begun, but Sandor was wearing an expression that he usually only revealed in the final moments before his completion. Sansa keened with shared pleasure, and Clegane’s voice joined him, but not in such an agreeable way.

“Relax, relax! You’re too bloody tight,” he growled, holding Sansa’s hips still.

Sansa focused on puffing out breaths of tension again, and the Hound made use of the delay in his own way.

“You’re dripping like a green boy with his first milkmaid,” Clegane laughed.

“Don’t look!” Sansa begged, covering himself with his hands.

“Oh for- don’t be so fucking shy! You think it bothers me to see you enjoying yourself?” He laughed crudely, and batted Sansa’s hands away lightly.

Sansa moaned in disapproval. Sandor laughed again, and abruptly grasped Sansa’s manhood, kneading its semi-softness in his large palm.

Sansa gurgled with shock.

“You know the only thing that’s going to make this even better,” Sandor began, sounding almost threatening, “Is to know you’re enjoying it as much as I am,” he gave a grin of terrible delight and then began gently moving again, this time squeezing Sansa’s cock in tandem with the strokes of his own.

It was the strike of tinder Sansa had been longing for. In only a few moments his manhood was hard, appallingly hard, almost more than it had ever been before. He was utterly lost; he felt Sandor inside him, around him, on top of him, and so Sandor was all that existed.

“Kiss me,” Sansa begged, gurgling again with surprised enjoyment as he was impaled even more firmly when Clegane bent forward to press their mouths together.

Sansa had cast off all the shame that had made him timid in the past. He ran his tongue across the edge of Sandor’s teeth, flicked it up under the inside of his lip and tenderly caressed the twisted flesh there. Sandor’s own tongue was simply lapping into Sansa’s mouth, bringing alive a hundred sensations to join the thousands more across his body.

Their mouths separated, re-joined in a soft-lipped kiss, then strove to entangle the other once more. Again and again this rhythm repeated, another song Sansa was eagerly learning to sing, engulfed in the fierceness of Sandor’s eyes.

“I love you,” he breathed against Sandor’s lips. The man’s eyes widened, his expression of focused enjoyment dropping away to reveal… apprehensive fear?

He ceased moving and all was silent, save for labored breathing and the pattering drops of rain on the tent. Was he working up the nerve to make his own declaration? Sansa hoped so, so very much.

The Hound’s head lowered onto Sansa’s shoulder, passing much of the bigger man’s weight onto his slender form. Like this though, calm and motionless, it was not unpleasant. Sansa’s heart beat louder in the silence, in tremulous anticipation.

But then the moment passed, Clegane picked himself up and continued moving, his eyes closed, his face clean of expression. Sansa’s heart skipped, just a little. What was he expecting, after all? Syrup-soaked platitudes?

He made himself relax once more, but it barely seemed to matter any longer. On the contrary, instead of being uncomfortable it was… compelling. Sansa’s own fluids had made his cock slipperly, and Clegane was able to tug on it almost viciously without causing any discomfort. Between the two extremes of sensation, Sansa found he had an appetite for it, in fact…

“A little stronger,” he whispered, quiet enough he barely heard himself. Sandor said nothing, but his tempo increased, and he began breathing twice as hard. It was strange, considering it was really only a small difference.

“Do you enjoy it… a lot?” Sansa asked, hoping Sandor didn’t want him to be quiet, needing to hear what was going on in the other man’s head.

“Too much,” came the grating reply, and Sansa sighed happily.

“Let me come inside you,” Sandor husked, demanding and begging all at once. That was awful! Abhorrent! And, and… and just the thought had Sansa roiling with hedonistic delight, his flame finally burning out in one last, brilliant flare. Clegane kept his hand on Sansa’s cock, catching his seed and continuing to squeeze him, drawing out every last drop.

“Is that a yes?” Sandor laughed, leaning over to gently bite Sansa’s shoulder and kiss his neck.

“Ohhh… oh, yes,” Sansa allowed him, willing to agree to almost anything in this moment. The Hound made a hiss of satisfaction, immediately changing to an unrelenting pace. Sansa was jostled to and fro with the movement, helpless but content.

 Sandor was far rougher with him here than he’d ever been to his mouth or his hands. Sansa could tell why he had craved this so much; he’d thought it would be much the same as the other ways, but it was a different thing entirely.

It didn’t take long before the Hound’s thrusts reached a fever pitch, and then he ceased abruptly, pushing himself down onto Sansa’s delicate form. Pushing himself deeper.

Sansa could feel distinctly the flinching of Sandor’s cock inside him, even the heat that was filling him. He arched his back in peculiar enjoyment.

“Oh gods don’t do that,” Sandor pressed him down onto the bed by his hip and shoulder, trying to keep Sansa still.

“Oh, sorry,” Sansa sighed, holding Sandor close.

“Unhnnh,” was the immediate reply, which, judging by Clegane’s continued tension, meant he was still struggling with his climax. Sansa stroked Sandor’s back tenderly, regarding the other man’s silly grimace with heavy-eyed fondness.

They lay entwined for a while, then separated wetly and just held each other. The warmth they shared was more than just two snuggling bodies and the thin soldier’s blanket could provide; it was something ethereal.

As Sansa was internally entreating himself to get up and go back to his rooms before his absence was completely unexplainable, he suddenly remembered why he was so light-hearted and happy today.

“I have some good news,” he whispered. Despite Sandor’s eyes being closed, Sansa felt sure he wasn’t asleep. _Fool me once…_

“Nn?” The reply confirmed his suspicions.

“Robb has decided I must go north to Winterfell. Apparently some Bolton men recaptured it, and now it needs a Stark to sit and re-establish the seat. With Robb freed of that duty, his armies can tarry here and flush out the Ironborn, as well as keep the Riverlands secure,” he recited nervously. Robb had honored Sansa with a position far above what he could have imagined himself. Sandor did not share his enthusiasm, keeping his eyes shut and his face indifferent.

“Probably for the best,” he said finally.

“I certainly hope so. Mother will not come with me, she wants to stay with Robb… and Arya, I’m not sure about her either. She seemed annoyed with having to choose,” Sansa himself wasn’t sure if he’d rather Arya stayed or accompanied him. Having family with him was a newly realized treasure, but Arya could still be insufferable at times…

“Sending you alone?” Sandor finally opened an eye at this revelation. “He better have some competent buggers guarding you, if he’s bold enough to send you alone into compromised territory,” he growled. Sansa beamed brightly.

“He does!” He chirped, taking a hold of Clegane’s hands and squeezing it reassuringly.

“He’s let me have you!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should Arya stay or should she go? Even I’m not sure at this point. I am open to be swayed either way.


	21. Woe to Wretches Called to Join the Wild Hunt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot is boring. I recently watched (or perhaps witnessed is a better term) the 1969 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid movie, and in the spirit of taking positivity from everything, I have decided if clunky montages are good enough for Hollywood, they’re good enough for me. Here is my written montage.

Sansa had known it would be hard to leave his mother once again. He had known it, but not truly understood it, until it came to happen. Making it worse was Lady Catelyn’s last minute second thoughts about staying with Robb. The first time was when she learnt that the Hound was to be Sansa’s guardian. The way she regarded him with burning intensity told Sansa she was not only mistrustful of his allegiance, but thankfully Robb seemed genuinely confused at why she could protest the appointment so strongly. It was fairly easy for Sansa to play along.

“How can it be improper, mother, when I am a man now as well?” Sansa asked with all the honesty he could feign after years in the Lannister court. “Surely it would be more unsuitable for me to be accompanied by a septa or… handmaidens,” he fidgeted a little, thinking of a girl in his bed.

Lady Catelyn shook her head, and glanced almost imperceptibly at King Robb. Then not so subtly glared at Clegane, as though he were somehow still capable of impregnating a fellow man. _Though oh my, if anyone could do it, it would be him_ , Sansa thought, wanting to fan himself to cool his cheeks.

In the end, it was determined a group of four men would make up Sansa’s personal guard, which he accepted, simply to not raise any more suspicions. He had to be grateful, after all, that Sandor was allowed to leave the battlefield. That he didn’t have to fear every day that he could be dying on some muddy slope somewhere…

The second time his mother considered returning to Winterfell with them was when Arya finally declared she would be going. They had fully assembled the company that was to depart, a group that consisted mainly of Stark and Bolton men, as well as some from Umber and Mormont, and numerous craftsmen and attendants that it was felt would be required to repair Winterfell. Arya had waited until this very moment, when they were making the final preparations, to make her decision.

Catelyn must have thought it assured she would stay, and it was obvious how painful it was for her to bid farewell to her daughters again. She flung herself onto Arya’s shoulder, kneeling in the dirt and holding her tight. Sansa’s heart hurt to see his mother’s shoulders shaking. Arya clutched her as well, but neither cried aloud.

“It will be dangerous, Arya, more dangerous than this war. At least here we are surrounded by your brother’s armies. Up north there will be many desperate men; Ironborn, wildlings and Northerners alike…,” Lady Catelyn begged her daughter, smoothing down Arya’s still-ragged hair.

“Good! I’m not going to sit here cowering. I’m going to kill everyone who hurt our people and Bran and Rickon!” Arya seethed, her face hard and cold. Catelyn looked up to Robb and Sansa in worry, but her concerns were mirrored on their faces. What had happened to Arya, to make her so vicious? Sansa feared to ask her, and it seemed their mother did as well.

“You’re just a child Arya… those are concerns for your brothers,” Lady Catelyn tried to reason. Arya declared that Sansa was completely helpless, but _he_ was being sent to defend Winterfell, which made Sansa promptly forget about being concerned for her safety.

When changing Arya’s mind proved fruitless, Catelyn began to consider if she shouldn’t go north as well. But Sansa could see their mother regarded him and Arya with just slightly less fear then when she looked at Robb, and indeed, when Lady Stark and Arya eventually parted, each had made clearly made their decision. Lady Stark stood behind her son, still in disgrace but unwilling to leave him. And Arya took Nymeria to join the departing group. Perhaps, like her wolf, she belonged in the north.

Sansa discovered later that Arya’s decision was to his benefit as well. The three other guardians – a Stark, a Bolton, and an Umber man – were not keen on spending time in close proximity to the direwolf, which still hunted regularly and would sometimes return with dirt- and blood-matted fur. Sansa would have found it extremely distasteful at one time, but he forced himself to ignore it.

The Hound didn’t bat an eye at sharing space with the giant wolf. He even managed to keep his horse calm after the first few days on the road. Although Stranger never became placid but then, when was he ever?

Arya was peeved by this, regularly launching into long, grisly detail about how Nymeria would eat the Hound alive any day now. The direwolf wasn’t friendly by any means, but she seemed quite content to live and let live. Unless there was food to be had, then it was on for young and old. Being wild for a time had made her a shameless scavenger, and Arya was little better.

Rather than ride with Sansa at the head of the company as a lord’s daughter, his younger sister spent her time poking into other’s business and forcing blameless people to put up with her. She insisted Nymeria sleep in the tent with them, so Sansa insisted Sandor sleep there as well, hoping to be rid of Arya and her direwolf both and have a private tent…

But Arya was not dissuaded so easily. Although she scrunched up her nose like she was seeing something foul every time she laid eyes on him, Arya chose to share a tent with Sansa, and the Hound. The four of them could barely squeeze in there together, which was awful, but it did make their bedding incredibly warm, which was lovely. But the tent had to be left open so Nymeria could go out and roam at night as she pleased, which meant a windy night left them little better than sleeping in the open.

Which was awful.

Sansa wouldn’t complain though. How could he, when he got to fall asleep every night smelling Sandor (and wet wolf fur, but that was a bearable sacrifice) and woke up surrounded by people he loved? When it allowed for secret cuddles in the dead of night, and hurried kisses and even, on two occasions, the quiet dance of fingers and laces that had been their staple in Sansa’s more timid days.  

For the most part, Clegane insisted on caution over satisfaction, and Sansa reluctantly followed suit. He didn’t really need much convincing after witnessing Arya’s disconcerting ability to appear silently whenever you least expected her. If Arya didn’t end up causing someone a heart attack one day, Sansa would be very surprised.

There was already a most likely candidate too; Arya had especially taken to harassing a blacksmith boy, one of the two she had escaped Harrenhal with. He bore her insults and criticisms and teasing without complaint, but Sansa felt Arya’s behaviour was far beyond what any offence the boy could have caused would merit. Sansa reminded himself to speak to her about that. A competent blacksmith was an important asset at this time; they could not afford to drive him away.

He never quite found the time to have that talk, though. Being the leader of their company meant he had an endless inventory of tasks to attend to. Every man’s reports came back to him, and every man sought his opinion on their matters.

Men would approach him and open their mouths, and Sansa would still instinctively expect them to tell him how lovely his hair looked that morning, and inquire if they could escort him on a walk. Instead they would ask when the group would next rest to send out hunters, and how soon they must be back by.

He was harried and surprised and delighted again and again by this turn of events. But was this change due to the transformation of his physical body, or to his acceptance of his new role? Could Lady Sansa have been this leader?

“Am I still the same person?” He asked Sandor one night as he helped keep Clegane’s equipment in shape. Sandor, who was more and more indispensable to him in understanding the operation of their troop, in choosing whose advice to take and how to keep the men’s regard and respect. “Or have I become someone different?”

The Hound paused in his work, regarding Sansa with that lopsided squint of his.

“You’re still you,” he finally grated appraisingly. “Just… more of you,” he said, waving his hand in an expansive gesture.

“ _More_ of me?” Sansa squawked, pinching his hips to feel if they were any fatter.

“Aye. Not _there_ ,” Sandor sneered at him. “I mean you have everything from before, and then _more_ ; something new,” he looked away, studying the distance pensively. “Like a second copy of you or, a second chance to be yourself in a new life.”

Sansa wasn’t really sure what to think of that, or if he even quite understood it, but he didn’t like the glum mood that had suddenly overtaken the Hound. He moved to sit by him and bent his head down as if to inspect the armor piece Sandor had been attaching a new buckle to.

“I’m glad you’re here to share this life with me,” he murmured, stroking the armor tenderly and hoping Clegane would know it was meant for him. He looked up to see a strange expression on Sandor’s face; a resigned confusion, perhaps. Sansa sighed. More than anything, he couldn’t wait for the privacy and intimacy that being in Winterfell would allow.

When they finally sighted the northern stronghold though, Sansa didn’t only feel relief. He felt fury, and sorrow, and regret, and joy and heartache. That he’d once been so keen to leave here was like a mystery to him. A memory of another person. Maybe the Hound was correct.

The mood of anticipation and impatience to occupy Winterfell’s walls was palpable among the host, in both Stark and Bolton men alike. Sansa chose prudence over the dearest wish of his heart, and kept their pace slow and manageable, so they did not arrive at the keep utterly spent. He was the lord here now and he wanted to impress his brother and his lover, and honor the memory of his father as well.

When they entered through the gates into the courtyard, a dashing young man stood in front of the assembly to receive them, head held as high as if he were king. _This must be Bolton’s bastard_ , Sansa assumed, understandably proud of taking back his liege’s castle. Sansa would not let his low birth affect his treatment or award. Having to siege the castle he grew up in would have put a permanent scar on Sansa’s heart, and he was grateful someone else had done the deed.

Nearly all the men in Winterfell were Bolton men; it seemed few remained of the original inhabitants, and that pierced Sansa with fresh grief. He did not let it show, nor did he let himself look too long on the ruin Winterfell had suffered. He led them forward with a high head and grave face.

“You are Lord Sansa Stark, and Lady Arya Stark, is that not correct?” the handsome man asked once they had dismounted, inclining his head respectfully. Sansa gave a slight nod in kind.

“That is so,” Sansa replied with the voice of a lord, “and are you the son of Lord Bolton, who has so recently distinguished himself among our bannermen?” He asked in return, allowing a small smile.

The man’s eyes raked over Sansa, and it was not until he was finished that Sansa recognized that his gaze was not appraising him as one man did another, but viewing him exactly as he had been in Joffrey’s court by men who thought no-one was watching them.

And then, if Sansa’s horror had not been enough before, Bolton’s son turned his head and passed that same gaze across Arya! Hungry and cruel, as if he were judging them to buy at market. Sansa suddenly had difficulty swallowing.

“I am so honored and pleased to meet you, my lord, my lady,” in contrast to his terrible eyes, his speech was perfectly polite, and he bowed graciously to each of them. “I am indeed Ramsay _Snow_ , and it was I who liberated your stronghold,” he smiled with teeth, and Sansa tried very hard to listen only to the words that were being spoken, and not to his personal feelings of the man. He knew he might be misjudging him simply because he was a bastard.

“And not only is Winterfell now yours once again, by my hand,” Ramsay continued, “but I have another gift for you, my lord…”


	22. Shrouded by Darkness, Even the Nocked Arrow of Artemis Can Find No Quarry

Whatever Ramsay’s gift was, he was exceedingly eager to present it to them. Sansa gave orders for the men to find accommodations wherever they could. He didn’t yet know the extent of the damage, but if the only place still fit to inhabit was the lord’s rooms, they would all live there. This was no time for propriety. Many roofs were gone, and the walls crumbled in places, but much was intact. He would have to inspect it all later; not only was he heartsore at the sight, but Ramsay was terribly impatient.

He led them to the kennels, which were burnt but showed signs of reconstruction. Sansa was confused why this of all places would be rebuilt first, until he saw they were still accommodating many dogs. Several barked aggressively at all the passers-by except Ramsay, and Sansa realized they must be Bolton dogs, and not those of Winterfell.

_More victims of the fire, and nobody to mourn them._

The new dogs were… fierce. Sansa did not let himself show fear. This was his castle now. The animals didn’t even flee from Nymeria, but threw themselves against the gates with vicious bloodlust.

“My dogs are well-trained,” Ramsay noted at this, looking at them with fondness. Sansa said nothing, not trusting himself to speak unwaveringly.

“And they’re guarding a most precious prisoner,” he continued, opening the gate and whistling his dogs to stand down. They did so, begrudgingly. Sansa went to step through the gate, but the Hound was suddenly in front of him, leading the way and standing between Sansa and the dogs.

Sansa’s throat tightened further, but he followed Ramsay in without a noise of distress.

They were taken into the covered buildings, to a stinking room where several Bolton soldiers stood guard. Inside the door, Sansa noted. _So they fear their own master’s dogs_. He was taken back in sudden remembrance of another smelly kennel he had been taken to, where he was given new clothes and new freedoms. It didn’t seem likely these ones would hold similar treasures.

“There he is,” Ramsay said proudly, pointing to a figure barely discernible against the dark wall behind it. The guards had a fire scorching the dirt floor, but this prisoner was making no attempt to benefit from the heat. Crouched, almost crushed, into a corner of the room was a frail body.

He was still as stone. It seemed to Sansa he had been sitting there a long time undisturbed, yet he had the air about him of one who was ready to bolt. Despite that he sat, legs locked together on the ground even while his body trembled.

“Theon,” he breathed, another chip breaking off his heart. He saw sudden movement in the corner of his eye. The teeth of the vicious hunting dogs flashed into his mind in the second before he recognized the figure.

“No, Arya!” Sansa yelled, moving forward to stop her, even though he knew he would be too slow.

Clegane was fast enough.

“Let me go! I’m going to kill him!” Arya screeched, all for naught as the Hound’s iron grasp pulled her back towards the door. The prisoner was already cowering as much as possible; there wasn’t anywhere left for him to cower to in response to Arya’s rage.

“You are not the lord here, Arya!” Sansa reminded his sister sharply, who abruptly went limp as she gaped. Then gave a raucous laugh.

“Oh, you’ll swing the sword will you, Sansa?” Arya sneered. Sansa gulped down bile. He had meant more that he was the one to say who lived and who died, but… he remembered his father’s words once they were on Arya’s lips.

“Yes,” he said firmly, brooking no argument, not even from himself. He strode towards the wretch who had betrayed them, who didn’t even bother to look his former family in the eyes.

“Theon Greyjoy,” Sansa said, not sure he wanted to sentence him right away but… needing something to fill the air.

“No, no, I’m not,” the man burbled, “I’m nothing,” his voice was wet and sickening in a way Sansa couldn’t place. He took Theon’s hands and pulled them away from his head. What they revealed was shocking.

It _was_ Theon. Barely. His face was swollen and mottled, his hair matted. Mucus dripped from his eyes and nose and mouth, where he appeared to be missing several teeth. Sansa jerked away from his vile form. The bile burnt the back of his throat this time before he could swallow against it.

“It… it’s Theon,” he croaked to his sister and Sandor, who were watching him expectantly. He felt trapped. “How long ago did your men defeat the Ironborn?” Sansa asked Ramsay, who did not show any disgust towards his pitiful captive. “Are there any others left?”

“Over a sennight, my lord,” Ramsay told him. “There were no others survivors. The Ironborn refused to surrender, fighting to the last man, but we made sure to take this one alive. I would never deprive you the chance to get justice for family,” he said earnestly.

“You have our gratitude,” Sansa said sincerely, though the bastard’s words had made him even more nervous, curiously. “He looks close to dying, but… I want to put him to trial; he needs to answer before the old gods for his crimes,” he said, pursing his lips together. He wanted Theon to beg forgiveness, to beg for his life. He wanted to know if Robb and all his family had ever meant anything to him in truth.

“Are you sure, my lord? Seems a waste of time… he had nothing to say but curses against us,” Ramsay shrugged. “And he was responsible for what happened here… I can show you the burned boys if you like.”

Sansa shuddered.

“No, I would not like that… have they not been buried?” He asked, feeling more and more uneased. He wished Theon would cease making such sickening gasping and sniffling sounds.

“We buried all the victims of the Ironborn together, quickly, just to keep animals away. My men have been sorely pressed by the fighting, and then trying to salvage and repair what we could.”

Sansa nodded quickly, sorry he had ever brought the matter up.

“There’s no doubt he did the foul deeds you were told of… he all but boasted of them until he was subdued. It’s pathetic, isn’t it? A man that pretends to be a lapdog for years, then shows his true colors once he has the chance… but puts his tail between his legs to beg for pity when it all goes wrong for him,” Ramsay said, his eyes getting brighter as he talked, though he kept his face sombre.

Sansa’s eye began twitching. His shock at seeing Theon’s state had started to give way to anger, but he didn’t want to have him executed now. Not yet. He had to just… get away from this place. Theon trembled as though he had been hunted into that corner, and they were the dogs circling him. But Sansa felt queerly that he had a foe on his heels as well… and he liked it not at all.

He needed… he wanted… Steeling himself, Sansa knelt in front of the traitor once more. _Let me have just a little absolution, and I will grant him his quick death._

“Why did you do it, Theon?” He whispered. “They were like your brothers.”

“No, I didn’t, I’m sorry, I’m nothing, I don’t know why, I didn’t, I’m sorry…” each word came out of him like the puff from a bellows, emptying him bit by bit until he was left gasping and dribbling.

Sansa stood up.

“Feed him. Give him blankets. I want him in his right mind when I sentence him,” he commanded. “Geralt,” he addressed the Stark man appointed to protect him, the one he could trust most, “I want you to remain here and guard the traitor. Do not let anyone near him besides myself. Not even my sister,” he didn’t look at Arya, so he could keep his face smooth. His voice didn’t quite match either his father’s stern authority or his mother’s sweetened determination. But as he turned and left the room, no-one said a word against him.

He was almost back to the guest quarters before he was able to speak again. If he’d been thinking clearly, he would have asked Ramsay to lead the way, simply to be polite. But it comforted him that there was no need of it. He could not get lost in Winterfell.

“It has been a long journey,” he said, trying in vain to lower his hackles, “I want the men that accompanied me settled in. Is there enough shelter for them?” He asked Ramsay, pausing so the man could walk alongside him.

“I will ensure they are cared for,” the bastard assured him.

“There are craftsmen and laborers as well as soldiers… but I know it may not be possible to host them any better than the others,” he mused. They’d need to draw people to Winterfell in order to rebuild it, and if word spread of terrible conditions, that would be so much harder.

“All the better then, they can build their own shelters,” Ramsay said with a disarming smile. Sansa was not sure he liked his tone.

“As for me, I would like to be taken to rooms I can settle myself and my sister into,” he asked, desperate to be alone so he could drop the lord’s mask. Ramsay complied straight away, showing them to the rooms in the keep that were still intact and had been prepared for their arrival.

“Who was managing the household for you in the interim?” Sansa asked, giving a woman’s critical eye to the bedding and dust and heavily scuffed furniture. It was shabby, but it would do. He would not appear ungrateful.

“Is there something you require, my lord?” Ramsay asked lightly.

“Yes, there needs to be a pallet set up for my guard, also,” Sansa remarked briskly, indicating the wall adjacent to the door. “Will you be able to get Nymeria to sleep inside with you at night, Arya?” He asked, hoping it would not be necessary to share a room with his sister again.

“Yes… I think so,” Arya shrugged.

“You are safe here, my lord. My men are loyal to me, and I am loyal to you,” Ramsay smiled again, smiles came easily to his face it seemed, and Sansa forced himself to smile back.

“I believe you,” he nodded his head in respect, “but twice my brother Bran was almost murdered inside these walls and… eventually someone succeeded,” he swallowed down a lump of grief. “Even the most loyal and brave men can be bypassed by a single determined assassin.”

“It’s true,” Arya chimed in, with a strength of conviction that was surprising.

“I can ensure your doors are guarded most closely,” Ramsay offered, and Sansa worried it was offending him to be doubted. But the Stark family had lost too much already.

“It would please me greatly if you did so,” Sansa smiled sweetly, “we will feel all the more safe. Either way, I will want my sister to have her wolf, and I my shield,” he said with what he hoped was a gentle but unresistable strength. If this Ramsay was going to look at Sansa like a woman, he could hear him as one also. The Bolton man kept smiling brightly, though his eyes remained dull.

“As you wish, my lord. I will have straw sent up to make a bed for your dog, ah, I mean, wolf,” he bowed, his face still merry and not at all embarrassed at his rude slip. Sansa found it increasingly difficult to keep his own expression pleasant. The others stayed mercifully silent as Ramsay took his leave, and the two remaining bodyguards took up their post outside the door.

Sansa had the peculiar feeling of being comforted by the walls of his true home, but alarmed and disturbed at the same time, as though behind every corner lay an enemy.

 _This is my home. **My** home_ , Sansa repeated to himself. _I cannot be frightened away from it. Ramsay’s dogs are terrible, but I also have a hound that answers only to my horn._

“That squid boy, in the kennels…” Sandor began as though prompted, his voice a low growl and his eyes flicking meaningfully towards the door. Sansa retreated towards the far end of the room and leant against the windowsill. Arya and the Hound stalked towards him, each with a grim face.

“Theon,” Sansa said softly. His heart was pulled a hundred different ways by that name, and he was less sure than ever about what justice Theon deserved after seeing him.

“Aye. He’s been tortured,” Sandor murmured. Arya glared up at him, but didn’t look shocked. Maybe more… _resentful_ , that Clegane had confirmed something they’d all been thinking. “And not just for something he knew, or to teach him a lesson. He’s been eaten away at, body and mind. Fucking sod is _broken_. He’d be better off out of his misery, and you’ll get no sense from him at a trial,” he rumbled.

“Who would do this?” Sansa breathed. Surely not his brother’s men. Eddard Stark had always executed his prisoners cleanly, and so did Robb as far as Sansa had seen. There was no favour to be gained in mutilating a Stark captive. Clegane shrugged.

“Maybe his own kin. I’ve been fortunate not to know too many Ironborn well in my life, but those I did…,” another roll of his brawny shoulder, “All the type to sell their own mothers.”

“Do you think it could be so?” Sansa asked breathlessly, more directed to Arya. “Did Theon only raze Winterfell because the Ironborn forced him?”

Arya bit her lip and squeezed her face up with the remnants of her rage.

“Does it matter? He still killed Rickon and Bran,” she snapped, not bothering well to keep her voice low.

“Yes, of course he would still be executed,” Sansa sighed, “But, I think it would make a difference to Robb… to all of us, to know the truth of why he did it. If the boy we remember growing up with really existed,” he couldn’t look either of them in the face. This wasn’t the first time Sansa had “lost” someone who never was real. The others weren’t such fools.

“I guess so,” Arya grumbled finally. Sansa nodded sadly.

“I will try to find out more, see if there are other survivors we can talk to,” he said hopefully, despite how thoroughly decimated Winterfell now was.

 _The truth can be as elusive to track as a white hart_ , Sansa considered. _But it can be caught, and I will not rest until I find it._

Their deliberations were interrupted by the knock of several men with sackfuls of straw. Sansa wasn’t sure who ended up having the larger bed; the direwolf or the giant man, but the annoyed Bolton men had to be sent back to the stables twice more for enough hay to make them both comfortable. Sansa didn’t let himself feel guilt. He had learnt well enough to not think of his lies while telling them.

The sound of the door’s latch closing when he and the Hound were finally alone to retire for the night was a sweet song. Sandor didn’t even need to ask before crushing down the straw and rumpling the meagre blankets they had found for him. When he turned around from messing up his cold pallet, Sansa was already nestled into the featherbed, legs under the furs and arms wide open.


End file.
